Church Council Quotes & Sayings

Isn't it an odd thing that doubting doctrines and dogmas not fully articulated until the Middle Ages can make you a heretic? Admitting to your pastor or priest that you doubt God, the Church, or the Bible can get you excommunicated. Yet treating your fellow human beings as though they were worthless scum will get you elected to the parish council (or to the U.S. Congress). Being open and honest about your faith - or lack thereof - will gain you ridicule and contempt. But take heart, fellow Christians. If you pretend everything is good, and that you are a faithful believer in all things, you most certainly will gain the respect of everyone in your community. Well, except the most important person of all - the guy who railed against hypocrisy: Jesus of Nazareth. — Charles Shingledecker

My duty as a member of the Council of the Twelve is to protect what is most unique about the LDS church, namely the authority of priesthood, testimony regarding the restoration of the gospel, and the divine mission of the Savior. Everything may be sacrificed in order to maintain the integrity of those essential facts. Thus, if Mormon Enigma reveals information that is detrimental to the reputation of Joseph Smith, then it is necessary to try to limit its influence and that of its authors. — Dallin H. Oaks

The most highly promoted of all was William Laud, who directed Church affairs as Bishop of London from 1628, although he had to wait for Canterbury until Archbishop Abbot had the good taste to die, in 1633. Laud was prominent in a royal regime which after 1629 ceased to trouble itself with meeting Parliament and instead tried to sort out England's problems with royal proclamations, Privy Council orders and the decisions of law courts. Its enemies sarcastically named the period 'Thorough', and looked back on it as the 'Eleven Years' Tyranny — Diarmaid MacCulloch

When I read the documents relative to the Modernism, as it was defined by Saint Pius X, and when I compare them to the documents of the II Vatican Council, I cannot help being bewildered. For what was condemned as heresy in 1906 was proclaimed as what is and should be from now on the doctrine and method of the Church. In other words, the modernists of 1906 were, somewhat, precursors to me. My masters were part of them. My parents taught me Modernism. How could Saint Pius X reject those that now seem to be my precursors? — Jean Guitton

The council now beginning rises in the Church like the daybreak, a forerunner of most splendid light. — Pope John XXIII

Indeed, Mr. Jefferson, what could be invented to debase the ancient Christianism, which Greeks, Romans, Hebrews and Christian factions, above all the Catholics, have not fraudulently imposed upon the public? Miracles after miracles have rolled down in torrents, wave succeeding wave in the Catholic church, from the Council of Nicea, and long before, to this day. — John Adams

I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish; where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials; and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all. — John F. Kennedy

One of the promising indications of a renewal in the Church's missionary consciousness in recent decades, has been the growing desire of many lay men and women [ ... ] to cooperate generously in the 'missio ad gentes.' As Vatican Council II stressed, the work of evangelization is a fundamental duty incumbent upon the whole People of God. — Pope Benedict XVI

Even Martin Luther and John Calvin believed that the Roman Catholic church, up to the Council of Trent, was basically orthodox - a true church with sound fundamental doctrines as well as significant error. — Norman Geisler

The Council of Nicaea. An ecumenical council was a new experiment. Local councils had long since grown to be a recognised organ of the Church both for legislation and for judicial proceedings. But no precedent as yet prescribed, no ecclesiastical law or theological principle had as yet enthroned, the 'General Council' as the supreme expression of the Church's mind. — Philip Schaff

I told him there was no future for him in this kind of campaign, that anything he said or did would not affect a decision of this matter, that it has never been the policy of the Church to take a stand simply on the basis of popularity.
... I gave him my testimony that no one was more anxious to do the will of the Lord than President Spencer W. Kimball, and that he and his counselors and the members of the Council of the Twelve prayed often for the direction of the Lord in all of their undertakings. I told him that we either have a prophet, or we don't have a prophet. If we have a prophet, we have everything. If we don't have a prophet, then we have nothing. — Gordon B. Hinckley

Before I was ordained, when I was working for the council, I thought of the first three months of the year as January, February, March. Now I think of them as Epiphany, Candlemas and Ash Wednesday. — Adam Smallbone

When a leader in the Church inspires council members with vision, he helps them focus on their real mission so that they are ministering to people rather than merely administering programs. — M. Russell Ballard

As Elder George F. Richards, President of the Council of the Twelve, said in a conference address in April 1947, 'when we say anything bad about the leaders of the Church, whether true or false, we tend to impair their influence and their usefulness and are thus working against the Lord and his cause.' ... The Holy Ghost will not guide or confirm criticism of the Lord's anointed, or of Church leaders, local or general. This reality should be part of the spiritual evaluation that LDS readers and viewers apply to those things written about our history and those who made it. — Dallin H. Oaks

Up until the 1950s the subject of the missionary movement was referred to as "missions" in the plural form. In fact, the term "missions" was first used in its current context by the Jesuits in the sixteenth century. But the International Missionary Council discussions in the 1950s on the missio- Dei convinced most that the mission of the Triune God was prior to any of the number of missions by Christians during the two millennia of church history. Consequently, since there was only one mission, the plural form has dropped out of familir usage and the singular form, "mission," has replaced it for the most part. Nevertheless, most churches and lay-persons hang on the plural missions. For that reason, and to make our point clear here, we will refer to it in this work from time to time while alerting believers to the coming change. — Walter C. Kaiser Jr.

There are those who ask what authority, what theological qualification, the Council intended to give to its teachings, knowing that it avoided issuing solemn dogmatic definitions backed by the Church's infallible teaching authority. The answer is known by those who remember the conciliar declaration of March 6, 1964, repeated on November 16, 1964. In view of the pastoral nature of the Council, it avoided proclaiming in an extraordinary manner any dogmata carrying the mark of infallibility. — Pope Paul VI

Merlin had, according to legend, created the White Council of Wizards from the chaos of the fall of the Roman Empire. He plunged into the flames of the burning Library of Alexandria to save the most critical texts, helped engineer the Catholic Church as a vessel to preserve knowledge and culture during Europe's Dark Ages, and leapt tall cathedrals in a single bound. — Jim Butcher

Preaching the whole council of God involves man's environment and physical being as well as his soul. There is no doubt that the church is in danger of getting off the main track and getting lost. — Billy Graham

The doctrine of the Trinity which was established in the church by the council of Nice, A. D. 325. This doctrine destroys the personality of God, and his Son Jesus Christ our Lord. — J. N. Andrews

The Council also commands933 that the public services of the Church shall not be celebrated in the vulgar tongue, but in a fixed language, each one according to the ancient formularies approved by the Church. — Francis De Sales

The men who were running the church in the late '60s and '70s panicked when they saw the chaos, which developed after the council. The relatively modest changes of those years thawed the ice in which Catholicism had been frozen since the French Revolution. — Andrew Greeley

Francis seems familiar because Catholics have already known him in the Vatican II priests who have been their pastors and sacramental ministers over the years since that council brought new life to an old church. Catholics have known him in the bishops and priests who brought the spirit of the council to their dioceses and parishes. — Eugene Kennedy

The principle of treating others the same way one would like to be treated is echoed in at least twelve religions of the world. "Others" transcend gender, race, class, sexual orientation or caste. Whoever and whatever the "other" is, she has to be treated with dignity, kindness, love, and respect. In African communitarian spirituality, this is well expressed in the Ubuntu religious and ethical ideal of "I am because you are, and since we are, therefore I am" - a mandate based on the reality of our being interconnected and interdependent as creation. Therefore pain caused to one is pain shared by all. FULATA MOYO, PROGRAM EXECUTIVE, WOMEN IN CHURCH AND SOCIETY, WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES — Jimmy Carter

Here are the folks that are involved in this New World Order: The United Nations [ ... ] the World Council of Churches [ ... ] the Council of Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderbergers [ ... ] the International Monetary Fund [ ... ] the Club of Rome, the communists, the socialists, the National Education Association [ ... ] the NOW organisation, the ACLU, the Masonic Lodge. — Kent Hovind

Application of the doctrine of biblical inerrancy as an essential element for the authority of the church. It was created to counter the drift from this important doctrinal foundation by significant segments of evangelicalism and the outright denial of it by other church movements.
In October 1978, the council held a summit meeting in Chicago. At that time, it issued a statement on biblical — R.C. Sproul

Let us remember Paul VI's words: "For the Catholic Church, no one is a stranger, no one is excluded, no one is far away" (Homily for the closing of the Second Vatican Council, 8 December 1965). Indeed, we are a single human family that is journeying on toward unity, making the most of solidarity and dialogue among peoples in the multiplicity of differences. — Pope Francis

Many council leaders and members will be surprised to discover how much more focused their work will become when they examine it through the lens of saving souls through the mission of the Church. — M. Russell Ballard

It is important to draw out the pastoral consequences of the Council's teaching, which reflects an ancient conviction of the Church. First, it needs to be said that in preaching the Gospel a fitting sense of proportion has to be maintained. — Pope Francis

Look at the Metropolitan Community Church today, the gay church, almost accepted into the World Council of Churches. Almost, the vote was against them. But they will try again and again until they get in, and the tragedy is that they would get one vote. Because they are spoken of here in Jude as being brute beasts, that is going to the baser lust of the flesh to live immorally, and so Jude describes this as apostasy. But thank God this vile and satanic system will one day be utterly annihilated and there'll be a celebration in heaven. — Jerry Falwell

I, too, like yourself was a good party man: my party was that of the Church; I was ultramontane. Your party system is one of your thefts from our Church; your National Convention is our Ecunemic Council; you abdicate reason, as we do, before its decisions; and you yourself Mr. Ratcliffe, you are a Cardinal. — Henry Adams

I believe in an America ... where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches, or any other ecclesiastical source. — John F. Kennedy