A Church in Crisis Quotes

“For God does not command the impossible, but by commanding he instructs you both to do what you can and to pray for what you cannot, and he gives you his aid to enable you.333”
― Ralph Martin, A Church in Crisis: Pathways Forward

“As John of the Cross points out with devastating accuracy and precision, the disorders in our heart, unless they are healed and purified by the action of the one true God, will leave us enslaved to our passions and unable to think clearly, decide wisely, and live in a way worthy of our dignity as bearers of the image of God.”
― Ralph Martin, A Church in Crisis: Pathways Forward

“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pain: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.474”
― Ralph Martin, A Church in Crisis: Pathways Forward

“There are so many aspects of the Fatima events that evidence the contemplative infusion of significant graces that produced zeal in the three children, but the one that I want to focus on is the apparition of Mary to the children on July 13, 1917.”
― Ralph Martin, A Church in Crisis: Pathways Forward

“By this, Bishop Hervas meant the tendency in practice to ask less of Catholics than what the Gospel asks and to offer less than what the Gospel offers. This has resulted in the widespread practice of a “lukewarm” Catholicism, one that is extremely vulnerable to deception and seduction. Scripture makes it clear that God does not look kindly on a lukewarm Christianity: “I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth” (Rev 3:15–16).”
― Ralph Martin, A Church in Crisis: Pathways Forward

“Authority, of course, is primarily service, but service of a very particular kind; it involves listening, consulting, and reaching consensus if possible, but also, when necessary, correcting, admonishing, rebuking, and making tough decisions even when there isn’t consensus.”
― Ralph Martin, A Church in Crisis: Pathways Forward

“Unfortunately, there is little evidence that the Church, so far at least, except among relatively small groupings, has adequately realized the internal renewal that the Council hoped for, which was primarily a renewal in holiness.”
― Ralph Martin, A Church in Crisis: Pathways Forward

“Currently in the United States, 40 percent of children are born out of wedlock, contributing to massive family breakdown,”
― Ralph Martin, A Church in Crisis: Pathways Forward

“of God and his Word and sexual sin and disorders. Romans 1 gives a devastating account of the downward descent into sexual confusion and disorder that flows from a rejection of God and a willful suppression of the truth that he has revealed to all mankind. The rejection of God’s Word regarding sexuality and its purposes in the name of “fulfillment” not only assaults Christian values but produces a harvest which is miserable in simply human terms.”
― Ralph Martin, A Church in Crisis: Pathways Forward

“Today our “leading universities” are the locus of the most amazing brainwashing in leftist ideology and the most amazing violators of academic freedom and freedom of speech.”
― Ralph Martin, A Church in Crisis: Pathways Forward

“Our understanding of human history will always be inadequate unless we realize that, as Paul puts it, “we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers” (Eph 6:12).”
― Ralph Martin, A Church in Crisis: Pathways Forward

“One of the most amazing recent developments is that a number of aggressive atheists are beginning to see the horror of a totally de-Christianized culture and are starting to acknowledge, without themselves claiming to have become believers, that Christianity contributed some great value to our lives and many of the progressive ideals came to birth only as a result of Christianity.”
― Ralph Martin, A Church in Crisis: Pathways Forward

“This presents us with a very serious situation. In a sympathetic but critical review of McClymond’s work, Roberto De La Noval, a professor of theology at Notre Dame, comes to the startling conclusion that a gap is opening up in the Christian churches between universalists and traditional Christianity and that what we are really facing is a conflict between “two different Gospels,”130 and that is certainly the case. We can’t avoid a choice. And in my opinion, those who choose against the traditional understanding of these matters are choosing a deception that only the devil will benefit from, a pernicious presumption on the mercy of God that will encourage countless souls to happily embark on the “broad way” that only leads to destruction. Painful decisions await many of us. It is time to stop straddling the issue. We have to make a choice, for Scripture and tradition or for a “different Gospel,” really, a”
― Ralph Martin, A Church in Crisis: Pathways Forward

“Indeed, one of the most insistent messages of both Testaments is that there are two ways set before the human race: one way leads to life; the other way leads to death. This is not just a theoretical possibility or an empty warning. The witness of the entire Bible—and indeed of all of human history—is to the actual historical realization of choice for and against God.”
― Ralph Martin, A Church in Crisis: Pathways Forward

“Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few…. Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. (Matt 7:13–14, 21)”
― Ralph Martin, A Church in Crisis: Pathways Forward

“Mark Twain said on one occasion, “It is not those parts of scripture that are hard to understand that most disturb me, but those parts that are so clear!”
― Ralph Martin, A Church in Crisis: Pathways Forward

“It is right to care for the environment and it is indeed a moral issue. It is right to care for the rights of the poor and to help protect them against policies motivated by greed and not respecting their well-being. But as I read all of them—and they are long!—I kept asking myself, Can you imagine Jesus saying things like this? No. Jesus was laser focused on the salvation of souls, on faith and repentance, on our eternal destinies, and these notes are hardly found in any of the documents. When they are found, they are completely overwhelmed by the very much greater abundance of “this world” concerns.”
― Ralph Martin, A Church in Crisis: Pathways Forward