Ross Douthat Quotes

I can't speak to the differences within the Catholic Church.

In the John Paul II days, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger had the advantage of staying in his cupboard - the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith - exchanging views only with the Pope, and speaking publicly only through carefully written missives on doctrinal issues.

Vatican II declares the Church... as necessary for salvation.

I do believe in the infallibility of the Pope, because I think we have to believe in something.

I totally respect the pope, and I totally respect the Catholic bishops and cardinals on doctrine.

Clearly the person who accepts the Church as an infallible guide will believe whatever the Church teaches.

I wouldn't take the Pope too seriously. He's a Pole first, a pope second, and maybe a Christian third.

The Catholic Church was the church of the colonial fascist regime.

The Roman Catholic Church isn't going to change its theologies.

The most harmful thing in Christianity … is the leadership of one man in the Church—for instance, the pope, and his supposed infallibility. It is precisely in the dogma of his infallibility that the greatest mistake is contained, for the pope is a sinful man

The Romanists have affirmed and maintained that the temporal power has no jurisdiction over them, but, on the contrary, that the spiritual power is above the temporal.

The Vatican is the last absolute monarchy on earth.

The Pope is the man, and the Pope can do whatever the Pope wants to do.

Out of the Roman States there is no country where I am Pope except the United States.

The problem for Rome, then, is how and when the intervention should be done with a sense of the possibility of going too far in limiting the freedom of theologians. This is not an easy time - neither for Rome nor for the theologians.

But to be the Vicar of Christ, to claim to exercise his prerogatives on earth, does involve a claim to his attributes, and therefore our opposition to Popery is opposition to a man claiming to be God.

Anybody can be Pope; the proof of this is that I have become one.

The Pope is not a political figure.

I was raised Catholic at a time when Vatican II was just taking hold.

On Earth, God has placed no more than two powers, and as there is in Heaven but one God, so is there here one Pope and one Emperor. Divine providence has specially appointed the Roman Empire to prevent the continuance of schism in the Church.

'The Fifth Gospel' is set entirely inside the Vatican and told from the perspective of a Catholic priest. I'm not Catholic myself, yet authenticity and factual accuracy are very important to me, so the novel required an enormous amount of research.

The Catholic Church is an innately conservative rock - they call themselves the 'rock of Peter' - and its resistance to change is, ironically, what has kept it constant throughout the ages.

If I were going to convert to any religion I would probably choose Catholicism because it at least has female saints and the Virgin Mary.

The Vatican has to strike a difficult balance between running a country and running a religious institution.