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I will forever stick up for Catholics and Christians in general. With a small number of very horrible exceptions, they do play by the rules.

This means that to man God gave a degree of free will.

I am a Catholic because I choose to be a Catholic. And then I go to the Mass because I choose. It is out of my free will.

It doesn't really matter how much of the rules or the dogma we accepted and lived by if we're not really living by the fundamental creed of the Catholic Church, which is service to others and finding God in ourselves and then seeing God in everyone - including our enemies.

I am not a Catholic; but I consider the Christian idea, which has its roots in Greek thought and in the course of the centuries has nourished all of our European civilization, as something that one cannot renounce without becoming degraded.

We Catholics must admit that there is a constant temptation among us to avoid the lectionary and the Word of God for private and pious devotions that usually have little power to actually change us or call our ego assumptions into question.

The priest is Christ's slave, and Christ himself took the form of a slave and became obedient to death. So the priest in serving human needs lives a Godward life, possessed by God and witnessing that only when lives are utterly possessed by God do they find their true freedom.

Rome should sometimes intervene and say this or that is not in conformity with the Catholic faith. Theologians should understand that. Some theologians go too far, for example, reducing the Catholic faith to a universal philosophy.

There are times when you need to pitch a fit and other times when you need to apply Catholic guilt, and it's just figuring out which is the most appropriate approach and then implementing it.

It's troubling for me as a Catholic to be at odds with the church.