"Our absolutist system, supported by the Inquisition, the strictest censorship, the suppression of all literature, the privileged exemption of the clergy, and arbitrary power of bishops, cannot endure any other than absolutist governments." - Dollinger: The Pope and the Council, London 1861, p. 23.
"No civil government, be it a monarchy, an aristocracy, a democracy ... can be a wise, just, efficient, or durable government, governing for the good of the community, with the Catholic Church; and without the papacy there is and can be no Catholic Church." - Dr Brownson, 19th-century Roman Catholic journalist, quoted in his Brownson's Quarterly Review, January, 1873, vol. 1, p. 10.
Has Rome changed today or remained "semper eadem"?
Stunned by the staggering growth of evangelical 'sects' in Brazil, leaders of the Roman Catholic Church have threatened to launch a 'holy war' against Protestants unless they stop leading people from the Catholic fold. At the 31st National Conference of the Bishops of Brazil, Bishop Sinesion called evangelicals a serious threat to the Vatican's influence in his country. "We will declare a holy war; don't doubt it. The Catholic Church has a ponderous structure, but when we move, we'll smash anyone beneath us." - Peter de Rosa: Vicars of Christ: The Dark Side of the Papacy. Crown Publishing Inc., 1988, p. 194.
"Jesus is alive on our altars, as offering. We become one with Christ in the Eucharist. ... As Catholics we have Mary, and that Mom of ours, Queen of Paradise, is praying for us till she sees us in glory. As Catholics we have the papacy, a history of popes from Peter to John Paul II. ... We have the rock upon which Christ did build His Church. ... As Catholics - now I love this one - we have purgatory. Thank God! I'm one of those people who would never get to the Beatific Vision without it. It's the only way to go. ... So as Catholics ... our job is to use this remaining decade evangelizing everyone we can into the Catholic Church, into the body of Christ and into the third millennium of Catholic history." - "Father" Tom Forrest, quoted in "Roman Catholic Doubletalk at Indianapolis '90", Foundation, July-August 1990.
"While the state has some rights, she has them only in virtue and by permission of the superior authority ... [...] of the Church." - The Catholic World, July 1870, vol. xi, p. 439.
