Parish Priest Quotes

From that time on the parish priest began to show signs of senility that would lead him to say years later that the devil had probably won his rebellion against God, and that he was the one who sat on the heavenly throne, without revealing his true identity in order to trap the unwary. ~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez

This conversation revealed to Odo a third conception of the religious idea. In Piedmont religion imposed itself as a military discipline, the enforced duty of the Christian citizen to the heavenly state; to the Duke it was a means of purchasing spiritual immunity from the consequences of bodily weakness; to the Bishop, it replaced the panem et circenses of ancient Rome. Where, in all this, was the share of those whom Christ had come to save? Where was Saint Francis's devotion to his heavenly bride, the Lady Poverty? Though here and there a good parish priest like Crescenti ministered to the temporal wants of the peasantry, it was only the free-thinker and the atheist who, at the risk of life and fortune, laboured for their moral liberation. Odo listened with a saddened heart, thinking, as he followed his host through the perfumed shade of the gardens, and down ~ Edith Wharton

One of the great challenges in healthcare technology is that medicine is at once an enormous business and an exquisitely human endeavor; it requires the ruthless efficiency of the modern manufacturing plant and the gentle hand-holding of the parish priest; it is about science, but also about art; it is eminently quantifiable and yet stubbornly not. ~ Robert Wachter

But now I see well the old proverb is true: That parish priest forgetteth that ever he was a clerk! ~ John Heywood

I have always hoped that it might be possible to conclude my ministry as I had begun it, as a parish priest, and this I believe to be the call of God. ~ David Hope, Baron Hope Of Thornes

In fact, properly speaking, no parish priest has any convictions on politics. At the back of his mind, he regards the state as an enemy that has usurped the temporal power of the Pope. Being an enemy, the state must be exploited as much as possible and without any qualms of conscience. Because of this innate and perhaps unconscious hostility to the state as an institution, the parish priest cannot see that it is the duty of a citizen to endeavour to make political life as morally clean as possible.

He cannot see that the community as a whole must always come into the forefront of every citizen's political consciousness and that personal interests must be sacrificed to the interests of the nation. No. The parish priest regards himself as the commander of his parish, which he is holding for His Majesty the Pope. Between himself and the Pope there is the Bishop, acting, so to speak, as the Divisional Commander. As far as the Civil Power is concerned, it is a semi-hostile force which must be kept in check, kept in tow, intrigued against and exploited, until that glorious day when the Vicar of Christ again is restored to his proper position as the ruler of the earth and the wearer of the Imperial crown.

This point of view helps the parish priest to adopt a very cold-blooded attitude towards Irish politics. He is merely either for or against the government. If he has a relative in a government position, he is in favour of the government. If he has a relative ~ Liam O'Flaherty

Yes, I was a parish priest for five years. I was a curate in a large working class parish in Bristol and the Vicar of a village in Kent. ~ John Polkinghorne

Every hundred years or so a new Grim Anoukie is made; the Parish Priest at the time picks a victim, usually someone who has pissed off the church or simply wouldn't be missed. He then buries them alive in the Virgin Grave; the rest is... history."

Nicky Peacock
"The Virgin Grave ~ Nicky Peacock

I am very much looking forward to being a parish priest. ~ David Hope

When the parish priest rebuked him for his celibacy, saying it would lead him into debaucheryand sin, hesaid that a man who had to be muzzled bya wife as a protection against debauchery was not worthy of the joy of innocence. After that people began to treat him with priestly respect. ~ Liam O'Flaherty

Most of what's known about religious practices in pre-Hispanic Mexico has come to us through a Catholic parish priest named Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón, one of the few who ever became fluent in the Nahuatl language. He spent the 1620s writing his "Treatise on the Superstitions and Heathen Customs that Today Live Among the Indians Native to This New Spain". He'd originally meant it to be something of a "field guide to the heathens" to help priests recognize and exterminate indigenous religious rites and their practitioners. In the process of his documentation, though, it's clear from his writings that Father Ruiz de Alarcón grew sympathetic. He was particularly fascinated with how Nahuatl people celebrated the sacred in ordinary objects, and encouraged living and spirit realities to meet up in the here and now. He noted that the concept of "death" as an ending did not exactly exist for them. When Aztec people left their bodies, they were presumed to be on an exciting trip through the ether. It wasn't something to cry about, except that the living still wanted to visit with them. People's sadness was not for the departed, but for themselves, and could be addressed through ritual visiting called Xantolo, an ordinary communion between the dead and the living. Mexican tradition still holds that Xantolo is always present in certain places and activities, including marigold fields, the cultivation of corn, the preparation of tamales and pan de muerto. Interestingly, farmers' markets ar ~ Barbara Kingsolver

When I started out, people were afraid of parish priests. Now they're afraid of newspaper editors. ~ Michael D. Higgins

Sunday afternoons at a parish center - or a community center - is familiar territory for me. ~ Denis McDonough

The illicit Irish homemade spirit, poitin was frowned upon by the Catholic Church, which made its manufacture grave enough of a sin to require a bishop's absolution rather than that of the regular parish priest. Ah, the lengths the Irish will go to for "the demon drink! ~ Rashers Tierney

An "exorcism" carried out by these untrained individuals very often becomes a source of misinformation, unecessary pain, a sideshow circus atmosphere. Not to mention the very serious dangers inherent in the actions of such dubious individuals for the victims body and soul. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary that we are able to recognize and find a legitimate exorcist. The first step should always be to ask your parish priest for direction. And as a rule NEVER pay money for such ministry. ~ Jack Ashcraft

As a parish priest of the Church Of England I promise to look after everyone in the community, not just those who come to church, not just white people, not just the Christians. ~ Alan Green

When you look at the crucifix, you understand how much Jesus loved you. When you look at the Sacred Host you understand how much Jesus loves you now. This is why you should ask your parish priest to have perpetual adoration in your parish. I beg the Blessed Mother to touch the hearts of all parish priests that they may have perpetual Eucharistic adoration in their parishes, and that it may spread throughout the entire world ~ Mother Teresa

Rincewind sighed. "Look," he said. "No self-respecting High Priest is going to go through all the business with the trumpets and the processions and the banners and everything, and then shove his knife into a daffodil and a couple of plums. You've got to face it, all this stuff about golden boughs and the cycles of nature and stuff just boils down to sex and violence, usually at the same time. ~ Terry Pratchett

But the other half of my motivation came from farther back in my brain, in the curious part that I inherited. It came from the spot in my skull that feels the burning need to unravel puzzles, finish crosswords, indulge in Internet games, and read all the mystery books I can get my grubby little paws on. Like it or not, need it or not, and want it or not, I can't leave a good mystery alone. ~ Cherie Priest

Help me, Gunnulf," begged Kristin. She was white to the very edge of her lips. "I don't know my own will." "Then say: Thy will be done," replied the priest softly. ~ Sigrid Undset

My strength is breaking people down. I may not outrun or outsize you, but I will make you miss. ~ Priest Holmes

Embraces are comminglings from the head even to the feet, And not a pompous high priest entering by a secret place. ~ William Blake

A drunk staggers out of a bar and runs right into two priests. He says, "I'm Jesus Christ." The first priest says, "No, son, you're not." The drunk turns to the other priest. "I'm Jesus Christ." The second priest replies, "No, son, you're not." So the drunk says, "Look, I can prove it." He walks back into the bar with the two priests. The bartender takes one look at the drunk and exclaims, "Jesus Christ, you're here again? ~ Various

Here's a joke about discernment: A woman asks her local priest for advice. "Father," she says, "I have a little boy who is six months old. And I'm curious to know what he will be when he grows up." The priest says, "Place before him three things: a bottle of whiskey, a dollar bill, and a Bible. If he picks the bottle of whiskey, he'll be a bartender. If he picks the dollar bill, a business man. And if he picks the Bible, a priest." So the mother thanks him and goes home. The next week she returns. "Well," said the priest, "which one did he pick: the whiskey, the dollar bill, or the Bible?" She says, "He picked all three!" "Ah," says the priest, "a Jesuit! ~ James Martin

We are here to know the unknown, love everyone, feel the joy of life and then we parish with infinite happiness. ~ Debasish Mridha

One day private ringer you're going to smile at something I say and the world will break in half. ~ Rick Yancey

I'm not bitching."
"Yes, you are. You're bitching like a junior miss beauty queen. ~ Rick Yancey

I don't think I'm going to be priest material. ~ Lionel Richie

By the way, Payne is spelled with a y and an e - not with an i," he told them, coming to a stop before a rickety shack slapped together from warped boards and cracked stones, perhaps the only building in town not covered in ivy. The priest turned and eyed the two of them carefully, then sighed. "Doesn't matter, I suppose. Neither of you is literate, correct?" "Wrong," Royce said. "Really?" Pastor Payne pushed up his lower lip. "Down here, only those in the clergy know their letters. I would have assumed that - your sort - wouldn't." "Our sort?" Royce asked. "Paid killers," Payne explained. "That's what you are, correct? I was informed that at least one of you has worked in that capacity for the Black Diamond Thieves Guild. Isn't that right?" "And for that reason you assumed we're ignorant?" Royce said. The priest nodded with enthusiasm. "People who ~ Michael J. Sullivan

We looked at each other for what seemed like an hour. He seemed to pity me, and I started to hate him, even though it is a cardinal sin to hate a priest, one of the deadliest, I do believe. ~ Matthew Quick

Emancipation, to be of any value to the slave, must be the free, voluntary act of the master, performed from a conviction of its propriety. ~ Elijah Parish Lovejoy

I'm having a bad day," I told him. My little brother hated me, my human-alien personal security guard confessed he doesn't know compassion from compost, and now my old high school crush informs me he's embarking on a suicide mission to rescue two missing and probably dead people. PLUS I wanted a sandwich that I could never have.

-Cassie ~ Rick Yancey

Declared that he had been directed to make a pilgrimage. His father scoffed - "Gregory has turned pilgrim out of laziness," said Efim - but Gregory set out and walked two thousand miles to the monastery at Mount Athos in Greece. At the end of two years, when Gregory returned, he carried an aura of mystery and holiness. He began to pray at length, to bless other peasants, to kneel at their beds in supplication when they were sick. He gave up his drinking and curbed his public lunges at women. It began to be said that Gregory Rasputin, the profligate, was a man who was close to God. The village priest, alarmed at this sudden blossoming of a vigorous young Holy Man within his sphere, suggested heresy and threatened an investigation. Unwilling to argue and bored by life in Pokrovskoe, Rasputin left the village and began once again to wander. ~ Robert K. Massie

To image the being of God towards the world, to be the priest of creation, is to behave towards the world in all its aspects, of work, and of play, in such a way that it may come to be what it was created to be, that which praises its maker by becoming perfect in its own way. In all this, there is room for both usefulness and beauty to take their due place, but differently according to differences of activity and object. ~ Colin Gunton

And there is my payment the rubies in your cheeks. Are you properly scandalized by your wicked behavior? If you were Catholic, you'd singe the ears of the priest you confessed to. Do you remember making me swear to repeat all those naughty actions agian, no matter what you said this morning?"
Now that he brought it up, I did recall saying that. Great Betrayed by my own immorality.
"God, Bones ... some of that was depraved."
"I'll take that as a compliment." He closed the distance between us."I love you. Don't be ashamed of anything we did, even if your prudery is on life support. ~ Jeaniene Frost

An artist is one of two things: he is either a high priest, or a more or less smart entertainer. - GIUSEPPE MAZZINI ~ Leo Tolstoy

During the sermon, the priest discussed the miracle of Immaculate Conception and the Virgin Birth. "Virgin, my ass!" Dad shouted. "Mary was a sweet Jewish broad who got herself knocked up! ~ Jeannette Walls

I give her back an honest-to-goodness smile, the old Ben Parish smile, the one that got me practically everything I wanted. Well, not practically; I'm being modest. ~ Rick Yancey

Then it was snack time, right in the middle of mass. Right out of nowhere, the priest would look down and say, 'Let's have some yum yums!' You would get in line - you would jump in the line - and you would go up and get the crouton O'Christ. ~ Dane Cook

Everyone say to himself: 'When was the last time I went to confession?' And if it has been a long time, don't lose another day! Go, the priest will be good. And Jesus, (will be) there, and Jesus is better than the priests - Jesus receives you. He will receive you with so much love! Be courageous, and go to confession, ~ Pope Francis

I'd never wanted to be with a woman rather than be a priest, I'd wanted to be with Poppy rather than be a priest. I didn't want the freedom to fuck, I wanted the freedom to fuck her. I didn't want a family, I wanted a family with her. ~ Anonymous

Einstein uses his concept of God more often than a Catholic priest. Once I asked him:
'Tomorrow is Sunday. Do you want me to come to you, so we can work?'
'Why not?'
'Because I thought perhaps you would like to rest on Sunday.'
Einstein settled the question by saying with a loud laugh: 'God does not rest on Sunday either.' ~ Leopold Infeld

Saint-Just, the contemporary of Sade, finally arrives at the justification of crime, though he starts from
very different principles. Saint-Just is, of course, the anti-Sade. If Sade's formula were "Open the prisons
or prove your virtue," then Saint-Just's would be: "Prove your virtue or go to prison." Both, however,
justify terrorism - the libertine justifies individual terrorism, the high priest of virtue State terrorism.
Absolute good and absolute evil, if the necessary logic is applied, both demand the same degree of
passion ~ Albert Camus

Pope Gelasius in his ninth letter (chap. 26) to the bishops of Lucania condemned the evil practice which had been introduced of women serving the priest at the celebration of Mass. Since this abuse had spread to the Greeks, Innocent IV strictly forbade it in his letter to the bishop of Tusculum: 'Women should not dare to serve at the altar; they should be altogether refused this ministry.' We too have forbidden this practice in the same words ... ~ Pope Benedict XIV

only, in the first place, they serve the Prince, the Chief Priest, the Tranibors, the Ambassadors, and strangers, if there are any, which, indeed, falls out but seldom, and for whom there are houses, well furnished, particularly appointed for their reception when they come among them. ~ Thomas More

Those who are fascinated by evil all too easily fall pray to it themselves [said the old priest at the Mission Dolores]. ~ Dianne Day

Individual customs and taboos do sometimes present particular problems - the Dennash, for example, have various rituals associated with passing faecal matter that require considerable space and equipment, as well as a priest. ~ Tom Melly