Sydney Smith Quotes

I think all priests should be married.

The truly longstanding tradition in the church is that some are called to celibacy. Some feel called to it. But the church has never supported that celibacy be mandated for someone not called to it. It's never imposed on someone.

I just wanted to be an ordinary parish priest.

If none were to Marry, but Men of strict Vertue and Honour, I doubt the World would be but thinly peopled.

Back when I was 8 or 9 and wanted to be a nun, I would often stop at church on my way home from school.

That's the great thing about entering a convent: There are things that you simply can't do, so you don't have to worry about them.

For both Protestants and Catholics, and whether or not absolute continence is demanded of the clergy, celibacy remains a blessed spiritual state.

And so um, I knew that I really didn't want to be a priest and didn't want to be a celibate, though I could probably manage it. Um, and um, ultimately I left.

I would distinguish, and the Church distinguishes, between orientation and action. We have many priests who have lived their lives in keeping with the absolute value of celibacy.

A bishop must be irreproachable, married only once, temperate, self-controlled, decent, hospitable, able to teach.

Refrain from contracting any marriage forbidden by the law of the land.

Christian priests refusal to marry is unnatural and destined to lead to fornication.

I ask everyone in Russia to pray for me, beginning with the bishops, whose whole life is a single prayer. I ask prayers also of those who humbly do not believe in the efficacy of their prayers, as well as of those who do not believe in prayer at all and even consider it useless.

I used to always sit in church looking out the windows at the boys, wondering if I could make an excuse to go out and, you know, go to the bathroom because all the outdoor toilets. But anyhow, I was only going out to see the boys.

Bishops sit in the House of Lords automatically.

Celibacy is one of the most unnatural things. It has destroyed so many human beings - millions - Catholic monks, Hindu monks, Buddhist monks, Jaina monks, nuns. For centuries they have been teaching celibacy; and the most amazing thing is, even in the twentieth century, not a single medical expert, physiologist, has stood up and said that celibacy is impossible, that in the very nature of things, it cannot happen.

It is not permitted for a woman to speak in the church, nor is it permitted for her to teach, nor to baptize, nor to offer [the eucharist], nor to claim for herself a share in any masculine function- not to mention any priestly office.

About the injunction of the Apostle Paul that women should keep silent in church? Don't go by one text only.

Christ sayeth not, Abstain from the flesh, from marrying, from housekeeping, etc., as the Papists teach, for that were even to invite the devil and all his fellows to a feast.

The custom of the Church has very great authority and ought to be jealously observed in all things.

It was with the utmost difficulty that ancient Rome could support the institution of six vestals; but the primitive church was filled with a great number of persons of either sex who had devoted themselves to the profession of perpetual chastity.

Every bishop can testify to the promptings that attend calls to serve in the Church. Frequently the call seems to be for the benefit not so much of those to be taught or led as for the person who is to teach or lead.

I don't see any harm in brining an instrument into the church itself.

To me, the most obscene word in our language is celibacy.

Lithuanian bishops have been heroic!