Inconsistency on the part of pastors and the faithful between what they say and what they do, between word and manner of life, is undermining the Church’s credibility.

All leaders in the Lord’s Church are called by proper authority. No prophet or any other leader in this Church, for that matter, has ever called himself or herself. No prophet has ever been elected.

My grandmother took me to church on Sunday all day long, every Sunday into the night. Then Monday evening was the missionary meeting. Tuesday evening was usher board meeting. Wednesday evening was prayer meeting. Thursday evening was visit the sick. Friday evening was choir practice. I mean, and at all those gatherings, we sang.

You cannot be a conscious Christian without St. Paul. He translated the teachings of Christ into a doctrinal structure that, even with the additions of a vast number of thinkers, theologians and pastors, has resisted and still exists after two thousand years.

We must not reduce the bosom of the universal church to a nest protecting our mediocrity.

We cannot have communion with Christ till we are in union with Him; and we cannot have communion with the Church till we are in vital union with it.

It’s amazing to me the number of people who will volunteer to help at church but won’t lift a finger to help at home!

If anything, I get most upset because I wanna read a good paper first thing in the morning. And if I see a lie about myself flash across the front of the cover, I don’t think much of the rest of the newspaper.

The best way to keep one’s word is not to give it.

I want get across to not just the church world. I want to get outside those walls to everyday people.

I knew credibility would come only in time and through earnest performances.

I don’t want to just preach to the church. I feel like I have a broader message.

I used to always sit in church looking out the windows at the boys, wondering if I could make an excuse to go out and, you know, go to the bathroom because all the outdoor toilets. But anyhow, I was only going out to see the boys.

Whether I’m running on the beach without my shirt or whether I’m going out with my kids or going to church or going out to dinner – I don’t choose to insulate myself in engaging in real life. Hence, the public kind of almost knows me as much through my real life that they see through the rag mags.

Each faithful young woman in the Church proclaims that individual worth is one of her most cherished values.

All you have in business is your reputation – so it’s very important that you keep your word.

I dream of a church that is a mother and shepherdess.

My parents had us in church every Sunday, every Wednesday. It was more of a tradition at that point; I didn’t have a personal relationship with the Lord until I went to the altar call one Sunday, and the youth pastor told us to make a decision for ourselves.

A church without women would be like the apostolic college without Mary. The Madonna is more important than the apostles, and the church herself is feminine, the spouse of Christ and a mother.

I don’t mind saying, you know, that I don’t take a salary from the church, and God has blessed me with more money than I could imagine from my books. It’s been printed all over, so I don’t feel like I am hiding anything.

When anyone has the power to destroy the whole human race in a matter of hours, it becomes a moral issue. The church must speak out.

Oh, how I would like a poor Church, and for the poor.

All credibility, all good conscience, all evidence of truth come only from the senses.

To gather with God’s people in united adoration of the Father is as necessary to the Christian life as prayer.

Now we have a problem in making our power credible, and Vietnam is the place.

If we had more hell in the pulpit, we would have less hell in the pew.

There is a danger that threatens everyone in the church, all of us. The danger of worldliness. It leads us to vanity, arrogance and pride.

I don’t consider myself to be that credulous.

We would like a stable policy framework, and whatever incentives and tax structures are there should be made known to investors upfront. There should be credibility, clarity and continuity in both policy formulation and its implementation.

Every church is a stone on the grave of a god-man: it does not want him to rise up again under any circumstances.

I mean in the South African case, many of those who were part of death squads would have been respectable members of their white community, people who went to church on Sunday, every Sunday.

At ev’ry word a reputation dies.

Reputation is the cornerstone of power. Through reputation alone you can intimidate and win; once it slips, however, you are vulnerable, and will be attacked on all sides. Make your reputation unassailable.

The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.

Vanity, showing off, is an attitude that reduces spirituality to a worldly thing, which is the worst sin that could be committed in the church.

Mutability of temper and inconsistency with ourselves is the greatest weakness of human nature.

I don’t mind saying, you know, that I don’t take a salary from the church, and God has blessed me with more money than I could imagine from my books.

For where God built a church, there the Devil would also build a chapel.

The word of man is the most durable of all material.

I see clearly that the thing the church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful; it needs nearness, proximity.

My parents were the same in the pulpit as they were at home. I think that’s where a lot of preachers‘ kids get off base sometimes. Because they don’t see the same things at both places.

I am the Democratic Party’s candidate for president who happens also to be a Catholic. I do not speak for my church on public matters – and the church does not speak for me.

I want to keep making records as long as I can, but I don’t know how long you can be taken seriously in rap.

I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its Churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world.

In the Church, and in the journey of faith, women have had and still have a special role in opening doors to the Lord.

Freedom without limits is just a word.

For diplomacy to be effective, words must be credible – and no one can now doubt the word of America.

The union of the Word and the Mind produces that mystery which is called Life… Learn deeply of the Mind and its mystery, for therein lies the secret of immortality.

A lack of realism in the vision today costs credibility tomorrow.

About Jesus Christ and the Church, I simply know they’re just one thing.

The style of God venerated in the church, mosque, or synagogue seems completely different from the style of the natural universe.

I really learned to sing in church, I think, really with emotion.

The Church is like a great tree whose roots must be energetically anchored in the earth while its leaves are serenely exposed to the bright sunlight. In this way, she sums up a whole gamut of beats in a single living and all-embracing act, each one of which corresponds to a particular degree or a possible form of spiritualisation.

People don’t come to church for preachments, of course, but to daydream about God.

I believe that Catholics involved in politics carry the values of their religion within them, but have the mature awareness and expertise to implement them. The Church will never go beyond its task of expressing and disseminating its values, at least as long as I’m here.

God tries you in certain, certain ways. Some people are rich, and they believe in God. They lose the money, things get hard, they get weak and quit going to church. Quit serving God like they did.

A word after a word after a word is power.

Once I knew only darkness and stillness… my life was without past or future… but a little word from the fingers of another fell into my hand that clutched at emptiness, and my heart leaped to the rapture of living.

I understood at a very early age that in nature, I felt everything I should feel in church but never did. Walking in the woods, I felt in touch with the universe and with the spirit of the universe.

We need to avoid the spiritual sickness of a church that is wrapped up in its own world: when a church becomes like this, it grows sick.

Spiritual worldliness kills! It kills the soul! It kills the Church!