Quotes & Sayings About Priesthood

The gods don't give a gift that precious to someone so undeserving."

"Are you my priest now?"

Hadrian stared at him.

Royce looked back down at the stream below. "She doesn't even know me. What if she doesn't like me? Few people do."

"She might not at first. Maribor knows I didn't. But you have a way of growing on a person." He smiled. "You know, like lichen or mold."

Royce looked up and scowled. "Okay, forget what I said. Definitely steer clear of the priesthood. — Michael J. Sullivan

Christ's invitation to the priesthood is an invitation to a way of life that is athletic in its intensity and heroic in its form. — Robert Barron

Repentance, prayer, and pondering over the scriptures are essential parts of our qualifying for the gifts of the Spirit in our priesthood service. Further magnification of our power to serve will come as we respond with faith to go forward in our callings with the Holy Ghost to help us. — Henry B. Eyring

Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood.z 25Therefore he is able to savea completely3 those who come to Godb through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.c 26Such a high priestd truly meets our need - one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners,e exalted above the heavens.f 27Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrificesg day after day, first for his own sins,h and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for alli when he offered himself. — Anonymous

Procreative power & priesthood power are shared by husband & wife — M. Russell Ballard

Priesthood power blesses all of us. Priesthood keys direct women as well as men, and priesthood ordinances and priesthood authority pertain to women as well as men. — Dallin H. Oaks

Religion united its influence with those of loyalty and love, and the order of knighthood, endowed with all the sanctity and religious awe that attended the priesthood, became an object of ambition to the greatest sovereigns. — Thomas Bulfinch

One of my favorite activities as a priesthood leader is visiting members of the Church in their homes. I especially enjoy calling upon and talking with members who commonly are described as 'less active.' — David A. Bednar

A Catholic understanding of priesthood is so strongly rooted in the historic actions of Jesus and in all their antecedents in the place of sacrifice in life. And those things ... they are rooted to the role of the man. — Vincent Nichols

The Lord says that "truth is knowledge of things as they are and as they were, and as they are to come" (Sec. 93.) Some of our brethren in writing, and a good many in talking, say truth is the knowledge, or a knowledge of things. . . . The insertion of a or the is a mistake. Truth is knowledge itself, information, intelligence, things that are, things that were, things that are to come--knowledge concerning them. That is truth. It is a splendid definition and answers the question of ages more clearly than anything I have ever heard attempted; even better than "truth the sum of existence," and yet the two in meaning are identical. Now, let us be correct in that little thing, and so in all things that pertain to our doctrines, our duties in the Priesthood, brethren, and in our quotations of scripture let us try to be right, as nearly correct as we can. — Charles W. Penrose

It is a shortsighted priesthood leader who doesn't see the value in calling upon the sisters to share the understanding and inspiration they possess. — M. Russell Ballard

It is important to note that when Mary Magdalene and other women were chosen by Jesus to bring the important news to the men, the men did not believe the women. Today 2,000 years later men still don't believe women when they say "We are also chosen by Jesus to be leaders in the church. — Roy Bourgeois

Public school teachers are the new priesthood while traditional religion is ridiculed and maligned. — Ann Coulter

When we are baptized and confirmed, when brethren are ordained to the priesthood, when we go to the temple and receive our endowment, when we enter into the new and everlasting covenant of eternal marriage - in all these sacred ordinances, we make solemn commitments to keep God's commandments. — Joseph B. Wirthlin

It [slavery] has exercised absolute mastery over the American Church ... With the Bible in their hands, her priesthood have attempted to prove that slavery came down from God out of heaven. They have become slaveholders and dealers in human flesh. — William Lloyd Garrison

In every country it is the priest who is conservative, for two reasons - because it is his bread and because he can only move with the people. All priests are not strong. If the people say, "Preach two thousand gods," the priests will do it. They are the servants of the congregation who pay them. God does not pay them. So blame yourselves before blaming the priests. You can only get the government and the religion and the priesthood you deserve, and no better. — Swami Vivekananda

Today is my anniversary of ordination to the priesthood. Please pray for me and all priests. — Pope Francis

One cannot escape the harsh fact that as a ministerial profession, the priesthood has very serious problems. They are not new. They did not develop yesterday or last year. — Andrew Greeley

I regard irreligious people as pioneers. If there had been no priesthood the world would have advanced ten thousand times better than it has now. — Anandi Gopal Joshi

It is within the sanctuary of the Church that we protect our faith. Meeting together with others who believe, we pray and find answers to our prayers; we worship through music, share testimony of the Savior, serve one another, and feel the Spirit of the Lord. We partake of the sacrament, receive the blessings of the priesthood, and attend the temple ... When you are faced with a test of faith, stay within the safety and security of the household of God. There is always a place for you here. No trial is so large we can't overcome it together. — Neil L. Andersen

Various Eastern fathers referred to the practice of married priests in their churches, offering each one of us elements for a further careful evaluation of the choice of the Latin church to connect celibacy to ordained priesthood. — Angelo Scola

There are many reasons why the general public doesn't really understand our monetary system. In the first place, money is something that people tend to get emotional about. After all, money involves, and always has involved, something closely akin to faith-which probably explains why in many past societies the money system has been in the hands of a priesthood, the subject of magical rites, and the ceremonial services of the tribe's medicine man. — Wright Patman

It is possible to rise to the lofty standard set by the Lord for priesthood holders in making decisions in quorums. It is possible when there is great faith and love and the absence of contention. — Henry B. Eyring

Incidentally, one has to be very careful with that 'Bridegroom' imagery. It is so very apt to land one in Male and Female Principles, Eleusis, and the womb of the Great Mother. And that sort of thing doesn't make much appeal to well-balanced women, who look on it as just another example of men's hopeless romanticism about sex, and who are apt either to burst out laughing or sniff a faint smell of drains. — Dorothy L. Sayers

Many years ago, it was my opportunity to serve as president of the Canadian Mission. There we had a branch with very limited priesthood. We always had a missionary presiding over the branch. I received a strong impression that we needed to have a member of the branch preside there. — Thomas S. Monson

We're not at a point in time to be taking chances with children and young people in the church. The Holy Father himself said ... there is no room in the priesthood or religious life for someone who has abused a child. I think he's right. — Roger Mahony

Only the brave should teach ... Teaching is a vocation. It is as sacred as priesthood; as innate a desire, as inescapable as the genius which compels a great artist. If he has not the concern for humanity, the love of living creatures, the vision of the priest and the artist, he must not teach. — Pearl S. Buck

You wonderful girls, dress modestly and keep yourselves physically clean. Be cheerful and happy. Be positive about life. Then the Holy Spirit will cause you to be more beautiful and attractive. And when a faithful priesthood bearer comes to carry you away on his white horse-which might be an '84 Ford-to the temple, you will be prepared in every way.' — F. Melvin Hammond

As I say, it never ceases to amaze me how gullible some of our Church members are ... "
Admonitions for the Priesthood of God", Ensign, Jan 1973 — Harold B. Lee

The priesthood holds consummate power. It can protect you from the plague of pornography-and it is a plague-if you are succumbing to its influence. If one is obedient, the priesthood can show how to break a habit and even erase an addiction. Holders of the priesthood have that authority and should employ it to combat evil influences. — Boyd K. Packer

Even if he hadn't spent the past three years in the field and more than a decade before that studying for the priesthood, he would have felt a stranger among these students - the young men in brilliantly colored, intricately pleated coats that broadened shoulders and narrowed hips, the young women wasp-waisted and delicious in pale and shimmering fabrics the colors of peony blossoms and sherbet. — Mary Doria Russell

So I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when I was applying for campus housing and overheard Andy telling my mother that the only way I was going to be safe from all the sexual assaults he'd heard about on National Public Radio was if I lived in an all-girl dorm.
Never mind that I have been kicking the butts of the undead since I was in elementary school, and that almost the entire time I resided under Andy's roof, I had a hot undead guy living in my bedroom. These are two of those secrets I was telling you about. Andy doesn't know about them, and neither does my mother. They think Jesse is what Father Dominic told them he is: a "young Jesuit student who transferred to the Carmel Mission from Mexico, then lost his yearning to go into the priesthood" after meeting me.
That one slays me every time. — Meg Cabot

Less than two centuries later, the Macedonian Greek Alexander the Great conquered Egypt, completing this task in a matter of months, but remaining long enough to found the city of Alexandria, whose site he selected in 331 BC at what was then the western mouth of the Nile delta. After this, in what appeared to be a characteristic act of hubris, but was in fact an attempt to win over the local priesthood, Alexander sacrificed to the sacred bull Apis and had himself crowned pharaoh. — Paul Strathern

The number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the church from the state. — James Madison

O miracle - thus to be able to give [peace] we ourselves do not possess, sweet miracle of our empty hands! — Georges Bernanos

A woman of faith is blessed by faithful men in her life who hold the priesthood of God and honor this privilege: her father, bishop, husband, brothers, sons. They value her and the divine gifts given by God to His daughter. They sustain and encourage, and they understand the great mission of her life as a woman. They love her; they bless her. — Margaret D. Nadauld

At different points in my life, I had grappled with the idea of going into the priesthood - in high school or law school. Where it ends, I'm not quite sure. Perhaps it ends with death, grappling with one's spirituality. — James McGreevey

It is my prayer that patience will be a defining characteristic of we who hold the priesthood of Almighty God; that we will courageously trust the Lord's promises and His timing; that we will act toward others with the patience and compassion we seek for ourselves; and that we will continue in patience until we are perfected. — Dieter F. Uchtdorf

The tension between autonomy and expertise had been, at a basic level, fundamental to the Protestant experience itself from the Reformation forward, as the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers, increasing literacy, and vernacular translations of the Bible undermined the clerical caste's monopoly on spiritual authority. In the twentieth-century United States, professional specialization, the Progressive emphasis on technical expertise, and simply the ever more complex nature of modern urban life pulled readers toward greater reliance on literary guidance, while the logic of consumerism, rooted in the all-powerful choice to buy or not to buy, further reinforced the notion of reader autonomy. — Matthew Hedstrom

He advocated that all who follow Jesus are priests, not just the official clergy. Much of what he said made sense, as did his kind manner. But why was he here now? Had this persecuted recluse emerged just to speak to me? — David Holdsworth

The thing about the Islamic situation is we don't have a church. We don't have an ordained priesthood, which makes it a little complicated. But we do have a tradition of scholarship, and rules of scholarship. It's very much like any field of knowledge. — Feisal Abdul Rauf

There was also something false about the atmosphere here. It was solemn and dignified like a church or the court of a president or a museum. They were moneylenders, but they acted as if charging interest were a noble calling, like the priesthood. — Ken Follett

We cannot enjoy power in the priesthood until we learn to act by faith. — Robert L. Millet

The false argument has been used that only a man can represent a male Jesus. But this portrays an inadequate understanding of the incarnation. The Son of God, in assuming our humanity, became a man, not to sanctify maleness, but our common humanity so that, be we men or women, we can see the dignity and beauty of our humanity sanctified in him. — James B. Torrance

We have got to be watchful, for I tell you God has sent us here to test us and to prove us. We were true in keeping our first estate. The people that are here today stood loyally by God and by Jesus and they did not flinch. If you had flinched, then you would not be here with the Priesthood upon you. The evidence that you were loyal, that you were true, and that you did not waver is to be found in the fact that you have received the Gospel-and the everlasting Priesthood. — George Q. Cannon

Have suggested throughout this book that the New Testament itself answers the first half of each of these prayers in terms, primarily, of a clear list of character traits whose radical novelty is generated from within the life, vision, achievement, death, and resurrection of Jesus himself. These events, taken together, constitute Jesus's followers as the true, image-bearing human beings, the royal priesthood. I have proposed, further, that according to the New Testament the way God the Holy Spirit answers the second half of the prayer is by renewing the individual heart and mind so that we can freely and consciously choose to practice those habits of behavior which, awkward and clumsy at first, will gradually become second nature. — N. T. Wright

The ancient Poets animated all sensible objects with Gods or Geniuses, calling them by the names and adorning them with the properties of woods, rivers, mountains, lakes, cities, nations, and whatever their enlarged & numerous senses could perceive.
And particularly they studied the genius of each city & country, placing it under its mental deity;
Till a system was formed, which some took advantage of & enslav'd the vulgar by attempting to realize or abstract the mental deities from their objects: thus began Priesthood;
Choosing forms of worship from poetic tales.
And at length they pronounc'd that the Gods had order'd such things.
Thus men forgot that All deities reside in the human breast. — William Blake

Writing a new play shouldn't be seen as a mystery belonging to a priesthood, but as a challenge, a technical challenge, just to get into it. — Tom Stoppard

My parents and grandparents have always been engaged in teaching or the medical profession or the priesthood, so I've sort of grown up with a sense of complicity in the lives of other people, so there's no virtue in that; it's the way one is raised. — Colin Firth

If by 'intellectual' you mean people who are a special class who are in the business of imposing thoughts and forming ideas for people in power, and telling people what they should believe ... they're really more a kind of secular priesthood, whose task it is to uphold the doctrinal truths of the society. And the population SHOULD be anti-intellectual in that repect. — Noam Chomsky

When exactly did this all change, and what were the social and theological factors that led to the change? The answer seems to be in the second century and: (1) because of the consolidation of ecclesial power in the hands of monarchial bishops and others; (2) in response to the rise of heretical movements such as the Gnostics; (3) in regard to the social context of the Lord's Supper, namely, the agape, or thanksgiving, meal, due to the rise to prominence of asceticism in the church; and (4) because the increasingly Gentile majority in the church was to change how second-century Christian thinkers would reflect on the meal. Thus, issues of power and purity and even ethnicity were to change the views of the Lord's Supper and the way it would be practiced. — Ben Witherington III

My guess is that you would find that the intellectual elite is the most heavily indoctrinated sector [of society], for good reasons. It's their role as a secular priesthood to really believe the nonsense that they put forth. Other people can repeat it, but it's not that crucial that they really believe it. But for the intellectual elite themselves, it's crucial that they believe it because, after all, they are the guardians of the faith. Except for a very rare person who's an outright liar, it's hard to be a convincing exponent of the faith unless you've internalized it and come to believe it. — Noam Chomsky

The priesthood is not dying, but the clerical state is dead. It needs to be buried, preferably with a Viking funeral in Boston Harbor so nobody can miss the spectacle of its passing. — Eugene Kennedy

I have beheld the power of God manifest in my home and in my ministry. I have seen evil rebuked and the elements controlled. I know what it means to have mountains of difficulty and ominous Red Seas part. I know what it means to have the destroying angel "pass by them." To have received the authority and to have exercised the power of "the Holy Priesthood, after the Order of the Son of God," is as great a blessing for me and for my family as I could ever hope for in this world. And that, in the end, is the meaning of the priesthood in everyday terms
its unequaled, unending, constant capacity to bless. — Jeffrey R. Holland

The spirit of revelation is available to every person who receives by proper priesthood authority the saving ordinances of baptism by immersion for the remission of sins and the laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost - and who is acting in faith to fulfill the priesthood injunction to 'receive the Holy Ghost.' — David A. Bednar

You, Priest in your mufti, you are a chaplain to the self-satisfied. I come not to challenge Muad'Dib but to challenge you! Is your religion real when it costs you nothing and carries no risk? Is your religion real when you fatten upon it? Is your religion real when you commit atrocities in its name? Whence comes your downward degeneration from the original revelation? Answer me, Priest! — Frank Herbert

The Glory was entrusted to you, you weren't given permission to pass it on as you see fit. — Michael Ende

It takes no great imagination to see that this picture of David is drastically different from the portrayals given in the Samuel traditions. It is not hard to see that such a constructed picture of David surely serves the context of the fifth century and no doubt serves the specific claims of the Levitic priesthood. The truth about David given here is that David is a pious, cultic man who finds his life shaped and enhanced by such explicit religious commitment. He is indeed a man of the assembly. — Walter Brueggemann

I testify to you that God's hand has been in our destiny. I testify that freedom as we know it today is being threatened as never before in our history. I further witness that this land-the Americas-must be protected, its Constitution upheld, for this is a land foreordained to be the Zion of our God. He expects us as members of the Church and bearers of His priesthood to do all we can to preserve our liberty. — Ezra Taft Benson

To be rich or well-born was a crime: men were prosecuted for holding or for refusing office: merit of any kind meant certain ruin. Nor were the Informers more hated for their crimes than for their prizes: some carried off a priesthood or the consulship as their spoil, others won offices and influence in the imperial household: the hatred and fear they inspired worked universal havoc. Slaves were bribed against their masters, freedmen against their patrons, and, if a man had no enemies, he was ruined by his friends. — Tacitus

Shepherds don't look after sheep because they love them - although I do think some shepherds like their sheep too much. They look after their sheep so they can, first, fleece them and second, turn them into meat. That's much more like the priesthood as I know it. — Christopher Hitchens

Mothers, your relationship with your daughter is of paramount importance, and so is your example. How you love and honor her father, his priesthood, and his divine role will be reflected and perhaps amplified in your daughter's attitudes and behavior. — Elaine S. Dalton

Emerence understood nothing of this. She rejected it. Like the leader of some primitive tribe she flew her standard - a sequinned evening dress - against the banner of the Lamb of God. The old woman opposed the church with an almost sixteenth-century fanaticism; not only the priesthood, but God himself and all the biblical characters, with the single exception of Joseph, whom she revered for his occupation: her own father had been a carpenter. — Magda Szabo

Even if gay marriage were legalized there would still be gay men who didn't want to marry, gay men no other gay men would want to marry, and gay men who didn't want to leave the priesthood in order to marry. — Dan Savage

From the prophets of Israel Lincoln had learned the note will idea that there can be serving people, with responsibility to the entire "family of man". — Elton Trueblood

The stage is yours, my dear Aaronic Priesthood boys. Are you ready and willing to play your part? The Lord needs every able young man to prepare and recommit, starting tonight, to be worthy of a call from the prophet of God to serve a mission. — Ronald A. Rasband

Pure womanhood plus priesthood means exaltation. But womanhood without priesthood, or priesthood without pure womanhood doesn't spell exaltation. — Harold B. Lee

The radical significance of Christ's substitutionary Priesthood does not lie in the fact that His perfect Self-offering perfects and completes our imperfect offerings, but that these are displaced by His completed Self-offering. We can only offer what has already been offered on our behalf, and offer it by the only mode appropriate to such a substitutionary offering, by prayer, thanksgiving, and praise. — T.F. Torrance

In the '50s and '60s, a family's first child went into the priesthood, the second went into the military, and the third child was an idiot and wound up in advertising. — Jerry Della Femina

If the Letter to the Hebrews treats the entire Passion as a prayer in which Jesus wrestles with God the Father and at the same time with human nature, it also sheds new light on the theological depth of the Mount of Olives prayer. For these cries and pleas are seen as Jesus' way of exercising his high priesthood. It is through his cries, his tears, and his prayers that Jesus does what the high priest is meant to do: he holds up to God the anguish of human existence. — Pope Benedict XVI

There is thus a very great deal in common between the enthusiasm with which Mohammed's teaching attacked the priesthood, the Mass and the sacraments, and the enthusiasm with which Calvinism, the central motive force of the Reformation, did the same. — Hilaire Belloc

Jesus ... said - long before his followers had established churches and a priesthood - 'I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.' This Way is the life of the Spirit. To follow it entails no necessity for places (all places are holy ground), no priesthood, since every man becomes a priest unto God ... — Esme Wynne-Tyson

The Lord will give His righteous servants opportunities to be bold as lions when they speak in His name and as witnesses in His priesthood. — Henry B. Eyring

This was the fatal flaw in Tim Leary's trip. He crashed around America selling "conciousness expansion" without ever giving a thought to the grim meat-hook realities that were lying in wait for all the people who took him too seriously. After West Point and the Priesthood, LSD must have seemed entirely logical to him ... but there is not much satisfaction in knowing that he blew it very badly for himself, because he took too many others down with him. — Hunter S. Thompson

The proud cannot accept the authority of God giving direction to their lives. (See Helaman 12:6.) They pit their perceptions of truth against God's great knowledge, their abilities versus God's priesthood power, and their accomplishments against His mighty works. — Ezra Taft Benson

A genuine invention in the realm of ideas must first emerge as an abstruse and even partial concept? At first blusha new idea appearstobe verycloseto insanity because to be new it must reverse important basic beliefs and assumptions which, in turn, have been institutionalized and are administered by one or another kind of priesthood with a vested interest in an old idea. — Arthur Miller

Comedy is still alive, and there are still funny people. Jews are still overrepresented in comedy and psychiatry and underrepresented in the priesthood. That immigrant Jewish humor is still with us. — Robert Klein

Regardless of our individual circumstances, we can all enjoy the full blessings of priesthood power through keeping the covenants we have made at baptism and in the temple. — Bonnie L. Oscarson

In Gaul were two orders, the nobility and the priesthood, while the people, says Caesar, were all slaves. — John Lothrop Motley

Literary men are ... a perpetual priesthood. — John Keats

Nor can We predict happier times for religion and government from the plans of those who desire vehemently to separate the Church from the state, and to break the mutual concord between temporal authority and the priesthood. It is certain that that concord which always was favorable and beneficial for the sacred and the civil order is feared by the shameless lovers of liberty. — Pope Gregory XVI

You young men of the priesthood, resolve to live the way you should. Don't be caught up in some of the silly things that are going on in the world, but bear in mind what has been given to you. — David B. Haight

The priesthood is not really so much a gift as it is a commission to serve, a privilege to lift, and an opportunity to bless the lives of others. — Thomas S. Monson

We magnify our priesthood and enlarge our calling when we serve with diligence and enthusiasm in those responsibilities to which we are called by proper authority. — Gordon B. Hinckley

The mathematical fraternity is a little like a self-perpetuating priesthood. The mathematicians of today teach the mathematicians of tomorrow and, in effect, decide whom to admit to the priesthood. — Paul Halmos

The privilege of holding the priesthood, which is the power and authority to act in God's name, is a great blessing and privilege and one that carries with it equally great obligations and responsibilities. — Ezra Taft Benson

If he had given away anything else, he would have been charged with indecent exposure. — Edmund Campion

A man may act as his conscience dictates so long as he does not infringe upon the rights of others. That is the spirit of true democracy, and all government by the Priesthood should be actuated by that same high motive. — David O. McKay

The first help to prayer is our only Mediator and Advocate, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, 1 John 2:2. He is pleading our cause before God, when we are hardly able to express what we want; who is therefore called the Word of the Father, because God, by him, has discovered his will to us; as he is also called 'the Mediator,' because he solicits our cause before God. When Moses complained that he was of slow speech, and a slow tongue, that so he might avoid carrying the commanded message to Pharaoh, God tells him, 'Aaron thy brother can speak well, he shall be to thee instead of a mouth.' Se we also, when we shall pray, are dull, and slow of speech, and therefore must fly to Christ, our heavenly Aaron, who is to us instead of a mouth. Therefore Christ commands us to pray in his name, who is our eternal High-priest, 'having an everlasting priesthood,' (Heb. 7:24,) 'interceding for us,' (Rom. 8:34,) 'in whom we have boldness,' and access with confidence by the faith of him,' Eph. 3:12. — Johann Arndt

It's for scientists to lay out the data and lay out what they think, and then it's for the public to make up its own mind. We don't live in a priesthood where some small group imposes its views on other people - that's not the way that science works, and it's not the way a democratic society should work. — Venkatraman Ramakrishnan

Build traditions in your families that will bring you together, for they can demonstrate your devotion, love, and support for one another. These events would include blessings of children, baptisms, other priesthood ordinances, graduations, missionary farewells, homecomings, and, of course, marriages. Sharing these occasions as a family will help us build a foundation established upon a rock. — L. Tom Perry

Not only was Cain called upon to suffer, but because of his wickedness he became the father of an inferior race. A curse was placed upon him and that curse has been continued through his lineage and must do so while time endures. Millions of souls have come into this world cursed with a black skin and have been denied the privilege of Priesthood and the fulness of the blessings of the Gospel. These are the descendants of Cain. Moreover, they have been made to feel their inferiority and have been separated from the rest of mankind from the beginning — Joseph Fielding Smith

This leaves us with the urgent question: How can we be or become a caring community, a community of people not trying to cover the pain or to avoid it by sophisticated bypasses, but rather share it as the source of healing and new life? It is important to realize that you cannot get a Ph.D. in caring, that caring cannot be delegated by specialists, and that therefore nobody can be excused from caring. Still, in a society like ours, we have a strong tendency to refer to specialists. When someone does not feel well, we quickly think, 'Where can we find a doctor?' When someone is confused, we easily advise him to go to a counselor. And when someone is dying, we quickly call a priest. Even when someone wants to pray we wonder if there is a minister around. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

The early Mormons were even less concerned about ministerial training. On several occasions, a man heard a discourse, submitted to baptism and confirmation, received a call to priesthood, and was sent on a mission - all on the same day. Canadian Samuel Hall, for instance, found a Latter-Day Saint tract on a Montreal street and traveled to Nauvoo to hear the teachings of Joseph Smith himself. On the day of his arrival, he heard a sermon by Smith, requested baptism, received ordination, and started on a mission - without even pausing to change his wet clothes. — Nathan O. Hatch

It's common knowledge that the "church" is nothing more than an invention of the priesthood designed to swindle the ordinary people of the empire out of just about everything they own. — David Eddings

Darwinism has become our culture's official creation myth, protected by a priesthood as dogmatic as any religious curia. — Nancy Pearcey

Missionary work is a manifestation of our spiritual identity and heritage. We were foreordained in the premortal existence and born into mortality to fulfill the covenant and promise God made to Abraham. We are here upon the earth at this time to magnify the priesthood and to preach the gospel. That is who we are, and that is why we are here - today and always. — David A. Bednar

Professor Khupe rubbed his hand along the sand dunes of her windswept form. The static charge made her skin feel like the surface of a cactus. He recoiled. How he wished he had gone into the priesthood when he had had the chance. Embracing celibacy was far easier than battling the consequences of shunning it. — Taona Dumisani Chiveneko

This Church is true. It will weather every storm that beats against it. It will outlast every critic who rises to mock it. It was established by God our Eternal Father for the blessing of His sons and daughters of all generations. It carries the name of Him who stands as its head, even the Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world. It is governed and moves by the power of the priesthood. It sends forth to the world another witness of the divinity of the Lord. Be faithful, my friends. Be true. Be loyal to the great things of God which have been revealed in this dispensation. — Gordon B. Hinckley

All this imagery and syncretism of Yahweh with Asherah was, of course, frowned on by the Levitical priesthood and made intolerant zealots like Samuel furious. Asherah smiled to herself. In truth, the elitist inner circle of Levites was quite small and unable to enforce its will across the innumerable rural towns and villages of Israel. The polytheistic folk religion of the common man was often out of tune with the official national cult of monolatry. But it was much more influential on the daily lives of citizens, who did what they wanted without repercussion. Thus, Asherah had a stranglehold on Israel and could venture most anywhere she wanted, without much fear of being attacked by Yahweh's evil minions. The people empowered her with their worship. Their idolatry protected her. — Brian Godawa