You will all be assailed, my dear friends, by the very real temptation to believe that you have been forsaken by God – that your priesthood is in vain, and that the weight of mortal...

On Good Friday last year the SS found some pretext to punish 60 priests with an hour on “the tree.” That is the mildest camp punishment. They tie a man’s hands together behind his back,...

The first days of January 1942 brought enormous amounts of snow. The reader already knows what snow meant for the clergy. But this time the torture surpassed the bounds of the endurable. At the same...

He advocated that all who follow Jesus are priests, not just the official clergy. Much of what he said made sense, as did his kind manner. But why was he here now? Had this persecuted...

When exactly did this all change, and what were the social and theological factors that led to the change? The answer seems to be in the second century and: (1) because of the consolidation of...

His was the profession at that era in which intellectual ability displayed itself far more than in political life; for—leaving a higher motive out of the question it offered inducements powerful enough in the almost...

Too often scholars have thought and even suggested that what happened during and after Constantine was that the church sought to replace the pagan temples, priests, and sacrifices with their own. This is at best...

…Turn our thoughts, in the next place, to the characters of learned men. The priesthood have, in all ancient nations, nearly monopolized learning. Read over again all the accounts we have of Hindoos, Chaldeans, Persians,...

Incidentally, one has to be very careful with that ‘Bridegroom’ imagery. It is so very apt to land one in Male and Female Principles, Eleusis, and the womb of the Great Mother. And that sort...

The very purpose of designing the Temple of Jerusalem as a series of ever more restrictive ingressions was to maintain the priestly monopoly over who can and cannot come into the presence of God and...

The Pope would have an easier job than the President of the United States in adopting a change of course. He has no Congress alongside him as a legislative body nor a Supreme Court as...

The judge speaks in the name of justice,’ he said. ‘The priest speaks in the name of pity, which is only a higher form of justice.’ (Bishop Myriel)

Everyone agrees the celibacy rule is just a Church law dating from the 11th century, not a divine command.

The false argument has been used that only a man can represent a male Jesus. But this portrays an inadequate understanding of the incarnation. The Son of God, in assuming our humanity, became a man,...

you are not afraid of worldliness. I do not mean that you are worldly. Far from it. But you have a talent for being all things to all men.