Church Corruption Quotes

I've got a pretty iconoclastic attitude about all institutions myself. And I just think the church was corrupted right after Christ was killed.

No religion can long continue to maintain its purity when the church becomes the subservient vassal of the state.

Behind the façade of robes and incense, clerical privilege was allowed to trump the Gospel

Satan is not fighting churches; he is joining them. He does more harm by sowing tares than by pulling up wheat. He accomplishes more by imitation than by outright opposition.

The devil's not fighting churches today, he's joining churches.

With shame be it spoken: by her fall, the Church's liberties have been sacrificed for the sake of temporal advantages. The road to her ruin lay through the sinuous paths of riches: she has been prostituted in the streets to princes; she has conceived iniquity and will bring forth oppression to the undeserving.

That very church which the world likes best is sure to be that which God abhors.

I exhort you all, that ye deface the said Bishop of Rome [the Pope] in all your books where he is named pope, and that ye shall have from henceforth no trust in him, nor in his bulls [pronouncements] or pardons, which beforetime, with his juggling, casts of binding and loosings, he sold you for your money … and also that ye fear not his great thunder claps of excommunication, for they cannot hurt you.

For most people reform meant relief from ecclesiastical extortions.

The church has been brought into the same value system as the world: fame, success, materialism and celebrity. We watch the leading churches and the leading Christians for our cues. We want to emulate the best known preachers with the biggest sanctuaries and the grandest edifices. Preoccupation with these values has perverted the church's message.

How many priests, pray, are free from whoredom? Nay, how many of their houses are infamous for daily acts of lewdness? How many honorable families do they defile by their vagabond lusts? For my part, I have no pleasure in exposing their vices, and it is no part of my design; but it is of importance to observe what a wide difference there is between the conduct of the priesthood of the present day, and that which true ministers of Christ and his church are bound to pursue.

Heads of the Church have often been narcissists, flattered and thrilled by their courtiers. The court is the leprosy of the Papacy … This Vatican-centered vision neglects the world around it and I will do everything to change it.

But look what the Church has done to Jesus during the last two thousand years. What they have made of Him. How they have turned every word He spoke for their own vile ends. Jesus would be framed and in jail if he was living today.

I remind you that there are churches so completely out of the hands of God that if the Holy Spirit withdrew from them, they wouldn't find it out for many months

Growing up, I always saw the hypocrisy of the Catholic church. The history speaks for itself, and I grew incredibly frustrated and angry. I essentially just put that into my words.

If the Church is not now as bad as the Soviet Government, that is due to the influence of those who attacked the Church

These most crafty enemies [the devils] have filled and inebriated with gall and bitterness the Church, the spouse of the Immaculate Lamb, and have laid impious hands on Her most sacred possessions. In the Holy Place itself, where has been set up the See of the most holy Peter and the Chair of Truth for the light of the world, they have raised the throne of their abominable impiety, with the iniquitous design that when the Pastor has been struck, the sheep may be scattered.

My life and the life of my family has been completely disrupted in absolutely every way by starting the school-prayer case. But it's been worth it. It's uncovered a vast cesspool of illegitimate economic and political power in which the Church is immersed right up to its ears, and I intend to dive in headfirst and pull it out of there dripping wet for all the world to see -no matter how long it takes, no matter whose feet get stepped on in the process, no matter how much it costs, no matter how great the personal sacrifice.

And the angel said unto me: Behold the formation of a church which is most abominable above all other churches, which slayeth the saints of God, yea, and tortureth them and bindeth them down, and yoketh them with a yoke of iron, and bringeth them down into captivity.

Corruption, the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty, was successfully practised; honours, gifts, and immunities were offered and accepted as the price of an episcopal vote; and the condemnation of the Alexandrian primate was artfully represented as the only measure which could restore the peace and union of the catholic church.

The church that is not jealously protected by mighty intercession and sacrificial labors will before long become the abode of every evil bird and the hiding place for unsuspected corruption. The creeping wilderness will soon take over that church that trusts in its own strength and forgets to watch and pray.

What baron or squire Or knight of the shire Lives half so well as a holy friar.

I acknowledge the Roman Church to be our mother church, although defiled with some infirmities and corruptions...Let [the Papists] assure themselves, that, as I am a friend of their persons, if they be good subjects, so am I a vowed enemy, and do denounce mortal war to their errors.

The church alone beyond all question Has for ill-gotten goods the right digestion.

[I am rescuing] the Philosophy of Jesus and the pure principles which he taught, from the artificial vestments in which they have been muffled by priests, who have travestied them into various forms as instruments of riches and power for themselves.