[T]here’s a lot to be said for celibacy, for the concentration of your mental and physical energy.

Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.

In our opinion, celibacy is about the Eucharist,

In its most beautiful expression and sublimest manifestations, the celibate ideal has proclaimed a world-wide love, in place of the narrower human love of home and children. Many saints and sages, reformers, and dogmatists have modeled their lives on this ideal. But such individuals cannot be taken as the standard of the race, for they are out of its main current: they are branches which may flower, but never fruit in a bodily form.

Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet. Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.

Both marriage and the vocation to the priesthood and celibacy are charisms and vocations, and we need to be open to the Holy Spirit. As a result, over the centuries, our Church has had to understand how we have both celibate priests, some of whom are diocesan, plus those who belong to religious orders, as well as married ones. In my eparchy, where our parishes are so far apart from each other, I think that having a wife and a family is a very good thing for support of that man, who most of the time are not from British Columbia, so they have no family there.

Celibacy for the sake of the Kingdom means embracing a life completely devoted to love, a love that enables you to commit yourselves fully to God's service and to be totally present to your brothers and sisters, especially those in need.

I defend celibacy for those who feel the priestly calling. But I also say: We need new collaborators in our communities. The ordination of married men meets this need, so I'm in favor. It's a process that must advance for the maturity of our church, not just in the Amazon, but who knows, maybe in other parts of the church, in our continent, and the whole world.

Priestly celibacy has been guarded by the Church for centuries as a brilliant jewel, and retains its value undiminished even in our time when the outlook of men and the state of the world have undergone such profound changes.

Another good remedy for wife-beating is the abolition of the Catholic Church.

The fact that some priests have experienced relationships and have brought children into the world does not affect the theme of priestly celibacy, which represents a precious gift for the Latin Church, the ever-present value of which has been expressed by the recent Popes, from St Paul VI to Pope Francis. Similarly, cases of abandonment of the matrimonial union and from the children do not take away from the ever-present value of Christian marriage.

The greatest merit of the critical spirit is that it tends to cure fanaticism, and it is logical enough that in our own fanatical times the critical spirit should tend to disappear.

In married life the capacity to love is concentrated in one person who is chosen forever, but in the option for celibacy the capacity to love is broadened and opened to many recipients, especially to those who are not loved. So being celibate does not imply loving less, but loving more. One renounces an exclusive love in order to live an inclusive love capable of embracing everyone.

Evolution under uniform conditions pleased every one — except curates and bishops; it was the very best substitute for religion; a safe, conservative, practical, thoroughly Common-Law deity.