I accept that there are multitudes seeking God, seeking meaning, and so on, but if they reject atheism, I would rather they became modern-day Catholics or Jews than that they became Muslims.
I'm not Catholic. I don't believe in God. But at the same time, I'm obsessed by the sacred, by spirituality. The question of redemption has been present well before Christianity, but as French people are a bit stupid, they see all that in religious t...
Apparently God takes reception of Holy Communion seriously. Apparently some things are more sacred than politics. Apparently it's all or nothing when it comes to being Catholic.
I was an altar boy. My mother wanted me to be a priest. I am very Christian and Catholic. ... I'm very faithful. I believe in God, in Jesus Christ.
I'm a closet Catholic. I love the iconography of the saints. There was a point in my life when I was going to convert to Catholicism, but I didn't want my grandmother spinning around in her grave like a rotisserie chicken.
Let me be clear: I am a Methodist. By that, I mean I think John Wesley was a recovery of Catholic Christianity through disciplined congregational life.
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.
I was brought up Catholic, and even as a little girl I was affected by the idea of giving back - doing something for the needy, something of significance.
I was the adoring son of a Welsh-Irish father, a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat, a Catholic Knight of Columbus who was a blue-collar, trade union organizer and, not surprisingly, a fervid Nixon-hater.
I wouldn't call myself religious. I'm spiritual. Everybody's a bit more so as you get older. I'm a cultural Catholic; it's inescapable, but I think I have to believe.
The idea of right and wrong, being righteous, acknowledging when you make a mistake, repentance - all these important things I got from my Catholic background.
There's Catholic guilt about things, then there's the guilt of being the youngest of 10, so when nice things happen to you, you're not really allowed to enjoy them.
I've always been really artistic. I went to an all-girls' private Catholic school, and one of their biggest things was musical theater. I became obsessed with that.
I had been involved in the March on Washington in 1963. I was with friends carrying a sign, 'Protestants, Jews and Catholics for Civil Rights.'
When I went to high school, an all-boys' school, a Catholic school, I tried out for football, and I didn't make it. It was the first time, athletically, that I was knocked down.
In my midteens I went through a brief stage of religious fanaticism, but it was very much about just saying prayers and stuff like that, reciting rosaries and spending a lot of time on that kind of Catholic ritual.
David Grant: Well, why did you have kids, then? Woody Grant: I like to screw, and your mother's a Catholic, so you figure it out.
Philomena: And after I had the sex, I thought anything that feels so lovely must be wrong. Martin Sixsmith: Fucking Catholics.
Rosemary Woodhouse: Isn't Hutch coming with us? Skipper: Catholics only, Miss. I'm afraid that we're bound by these prejudices. Rosemary Woodhouse: I understand.
I know of no wars started by anyone to impose lack of religion on someone else. We have lethal Sunni v Shia, Catholic against Protestant, but no agnostic suicide bombers attack crowded atheist pubs.
So nonetheless given the importance that was placed on sport in Australia, I wanted to be part of that scene, particularly since I had felt very strongly in my early schooling being marginalised even in the Catholic school.
