Francis George Quotes & Sayings

Every faith uses some kind of tool to understand itself better. Faith seeks understanding. The Western tradition has used philosophy to understand the truths of the faith and you come up with theology. Where as, Islam at a certain point said: we'll use law. There are these four major, developed schools of Islamic jurisprudence. — Francis George

In the United States, everything is permitted, even encouraged: "Go for it, try it, do it," we are urged, no matter what the "it" might be. But, while everything might be permitted, practically nothing is forgiven. By contrast, in the Church much is not permitted: "If you love me, keep my commandments," Jesus says (Jn. 15:10). But, while much is not permitted, everything can be forgiven. Our culture pulls us towards vengeance; our faith towards mercy. — Francis George

A word made flesh leaves a community, a church which is itself sacramental, which goes about making invisible spiritual realities visible so they can be shared, especially in word and symbol. The church is a sacramental sign. — Francis George

God always wants what's best for us, just as you want what's best for someone you really love. You put them before you, and God does that too. God puts us before His Son, who He sacrificed for our salvation. But the Son did it voluntarily because He has the love of the Father before us. — Francis George

I expect to die in bed, my successor will die in prison and his successor will die a martyr in the public square. His successor will pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization, as the church has done so often in human history — Francis George

Pentecost is a feast of conversion. Our minds are converted to Christ in faith; and our hearts are
converted to his mission in charity. Faith and charity are given with the coming of the Holy Spirit.
Everything in the Church is a gift. — Francis George

Faith is not a contract. Faith is surrender. If no other relationship in our experience is one of self-surrender, if it's all contractual, people won't know how to believe. — Francis George

Our religious traditions must recognize certain things as beyond their competence. But at the same time, the properly secular society has to be sober in its recognition that it exists under God, firm in its understanding that fundamental truths, many of them religious in nature, undergird its very existence. — Francis George

In Christ, we are free to act, to do what we need to do, what we should do. The world understands this freedom, the freedom to act; but if freedom is reduced to actions willed by each of us, the world becomes a brittle place. Each one's freedom is limited by the action of others. — Francis George

That question in marriage is mutual submission, really - the next verse goes on: "husbands love your wife as Christ loves the Church." — Francis George

Marriage in the Church changes all of us who are believers. This is why marriage, along with the sacrament of Holy Orders, is called a social sacrament. It changes everyone's life, not just the lives of those who enter into a particular marriage covenant. Everyone therefore has a stake in the success of a marriage. — Francis George

If you, however, separate reason and faith so that it's purely a rationalistic scheme, it will end in violence. If a pure faith scheme - sometimes called the fundamentalist scheme in modern parlance - you'll end in violence too. — Francis George

The primary moral judgment on candidates and their positions is to be made in the light of their concern for protecting human life from conception to natural death. — Francis George

Our choices have eternal consequences. We can merit and we can sin; we are agents in the story of our salvation. God is not a script writer who will automatically guarantee a happy ending to every life story. God is, however, more eager to embrace us in love and to save us than we ourselves are eager to be saved. We can count on God's mercy; but his mercy does not destroy our freedom. — Francis George

Equality, therefore, becomes the criterion because we can handle all that in process, but we can't handle that as principle without infringing on freedom. — Francis George

How do you love somebody? It is just through living with them, at least intentionally, and working through problems as they arise. — Francis George

Pastoring effects conversion of heart and mind and soul. A pastor is given by Christ to call people to conversion, to change, for the sake of life with God here and in eternity. — Francis George

The same impulse of love that is the life of God, that sent the Son into the world and to his passion, death and resurrection, sends the Church to proclaim the Gospel to the world until Christ returns in glory. The Church participates in the salvific mission of God, and all those gathered into the Church personally participate in that mission to the entire world. — Francis George

Faith is a gift, and we have to pray for it. — Francis George

Interest in religion is not necessarily interest in God. Religion in public life means a set of ideas, an ideology that has certain positions. Religion is then one more ideology among others. Religion is about God. Religion begins with a relationship to God, not a relationship to an idea. It is God who is an actor, not just individuals who have certain beliefs who are actors. God is an actor. — Francis George

In our country [US] equality means your liberal and freedom means you're conservative. That tension is there and it can't be handled on its own terms. It can't be handled as you go out of that and go back into natural institutions or natural law or divine revelation. Something outside of the system has to tell you the system has gone wrong. — Francis George

This is a real presence which includes every dimension of who Jesus is: body and blood, human soul and divine person. The consecrated Eucharistic species are the Lord and therefore command our adoration. We do not adore ourselves, nor the ordained priest, nor the Bible, even though these are vehicles for Christ's spiritual presence; we do adore the Eucharist, this blessed sacrifice made really present sacramentally. — Francis George

Analogies can easily be multiplied, if one wants to push a thesis; but the point is that the greatest threat to world peace and international justice is the nation state gone bad, claiming an absolute power, deciding questions and making 'laws' beyond its competence. Few there are, however, who would venture to ask if there might be a better way for humanity to organize itself for the sake of the common good. Few, that is, beyond a prophetic voice like that of Dorothy Day, speaking acerbically about 'Holy Mother the State,' or the ecclesiastical voice that calls the world, from generation to generation, to live at peace in the kingdom of God. — Francis George

We [Americans] have secularized the public life of our country in such a way to say something is religious is something negative. Religion has now turned into a way to discredit people. It is futile and dishonest to argue about religion. Religion is a phenomenological umbrella; there are all kinds of religions. It makes a difference when your religion is telling you something true or something false. — Francis George

The Church is our Mother, which means it is an internal voice. It is not a set of external rules. That's what isn't understood about Catholicism in this Protestant culture. It means that your conscience is formed by the Church, but in the end you're responsible for your own activities. — Francis George

The question about who God is is a very public question. We don't have the tools in this kind of political atmosphere to handle that, and maybe politics isn't the best place to answer that. It is a public issue. — Francis George

If you're going to say you're Catholic, you inform your conscience so that you're activities will conform to what God is telling us through the Church. If God is telling you something outside of that, well, the Church will look at that and say: we think it is true or we don't think it is true. The Church might say: that might be true for you but it has no public normative value. — Francis George

Looking again at the lights and the shadows, in both one's own life and in the history of the past century, gives a person perspective to face the end of life on earth in the light of eternity. — Francis George

The relationship between catholicity and apostolicity defines the Church's mission in this and every age; and sometimes the relationship is tense. In our age, the temptation is to reduce the tension by emphasizing catholicity and "inclusivity" at the expense of apostolicity and "exclusivity". Sometimes this is done by setting compassion against truth. This is always a mistake, even when it is well intentioned. It isn't compassionate to tell people lies, and it isn't truthful to deprive anyone of the hope born of love. — Francis George

At each turning, there's a call. You may not always see it as a call. Sometimes it's 'Why am I doing this now, and what am I doing here?' But it's a call. You have to see it as a call, and with God's grace, you do. .. each time there is a response to a call, you see a different dimension of Christ. — Francis George

God's is the causality at the level of our being, and therefore the roots of our freedom. Ours in causality is determinative of what kind of being we're going to be through our free choices, what kind of action we are going to do through our decisions. — Francis George

Christ didn't leave us a book of instructions; He left us a body, a family - a Church. If it were perfectly clear, there wouldn't be any freedom. — Francis George

There is the enormous corpus of Islamic law that is very rich. However, law is one rational exercise of reason. Philosophy is very different. Philosophy wants to try to understand everything. It is a better dialogue partner with faith than law. — Francis George

That's the purpose of law: to defend those who otherwise could not defend themselves. We will be together in this struggle for the good of society itself, believing with Alexis de Tocqueville that churches and religious bodies play a crucial role, a mediating role, in fostering a nation's civic life. — Francis George

So, in every case if you really love someone there is an element of submission to them because you want what's best for them, and at times they're going to tell you what's best for them. Even if you have second thoughts about it, you'll probably still do it because you love them. — Francis George

If evangelizing, sharing Christ's spiritual gifts, is confused with proselytizing, then clarity of purpose and action will be resented. Evangelizing, however, calls the evangelizer to conversion while he or she is telling others who Christ is. — Francis George

He [God] made us free, and He respects that. It is two different spheres of causality. Interdependent, though. It is not two boxes looking at one another without any kind of direct connections. There are very direct connections. That's why the question of "how are we free if God is omnipotent?" is a real, constant question. Ultimately, God is all powerful, and yet we are free. — Francis George

To worship ourselves rather than Christ is idolatry; but to dismiss anything of ourselves, including our bodies, as of trivial importance is a form of blasphemy. — Francis George

The trust is a matter of love and faith is a matter of truth. The two together give you the guidance that you look for. — Francis George

From a Christian perspective, the answer to all of that is not power, as it is in the modern perspective. It's love. It's self-sacrifice. That's what love is all about. The marriage ceremony says it very well: sacrifice is difficult, but love can make it a joy. — Francis George

Unity has many possible bases, but the strongest unity is based on love. — Francis George

Growing in intimacy with Jesus means coming to know what he knows and coming to love as he loves. — Francis George

Law is a process. If there is equality of process for everybody, then that's our definition of justice. Whether or not what is done is right or wrong, you follow the process. And so, the end result is just by definition within that alternative universe that is American law. Most people still operate within a moral universe where principles of good and bad and what is right and wrong in itself, and not just as a result of the process. — Francis George

Religion doesn't start with a set of laws or rules and it doesn't start with a set of ideas. It starts with an encounter, with the living God and in our case, Christ risen from the dead. In that encounter you meet someone you can trust. That's faith: trust in truth. — Francis George

Peter of Jerusalem told his followers that they should be prepared to give an account (logos) of the hope that is in them (I Pt 3: 15). The logos that Peter referred to is, in the final instance, a Person, the eternal Word of God, the ultimate explanation of our life, our movement, and our being. — Francis George

The foundation of our faith is not a book, although the Bible is an essential and divinely inspired witness to what God has done and desires of us in turn; nor is it a set of laws, although the commands of God show the way to salvation. The foundation of our faith is the one whom God sent, his Son who has a name, Jesus, the Word of life who could be heard, seen and touched (1 John 1,1). Faith is a personal response to this Lord who died to save us. — Francis George

Economic and political factors play themselves out through human agency; and human beings are fundamentally shaped by their cultures. — Francis George

Love isn't blind. Love is reasonable. God is pure love, but He is also pure reason. If you separate reason from faith you'll end in violence. Either way, if you have a purely rationalistic scheme that is atheistic, for instance Communism was for social justice. Fascism was for the nation-state, which isn't automatically a bad thing. — Francis George

If God is inside our nature and our history, he can take over our lives. What is an opportunity for believers - finding freedom in surrendering our lives and our selves to God - is overwhelming and demeaning for others. And it is true that to invite Jesus into one's life is to be changed. Christ breaks down our defenses, including the habits of ordinary life. — Francis George

The fact that God knows everything does not mean that He is directly causing everything. He respects our freedom at our level. He makes it possible for us to act freely. If He didn't, we wouldn't act at all - we wouldn't be at all. — Francis George

Poetic speech is always innovative. This is not without personal benefit, of course, but it cannot integrate, cannot govern. For the sake of generating discussion by making an outrageous statement, I would suggest that when theology becomes religious studies, it transforms itself, in Plato's scheme of things, from philosophy to poetry. — Francis George

Many Americans do not understand why we are regarded with such suspicion by so many others around the world and the anger of the moment makes public discussion of central problems frequently intemperate. — Francis George

The presumption that the law can tell us what natural institution is supposed to be is a formula for totalitarianism. There's not equality in a family; there never is. And yet for that reason, the family is condemned as patriarchal. The goal of this sort of legislation is about the destruction of the traditional family, not just marriage. — Francis George