It’s the strangest thing about this church - it is obsessed with sex, absolutely obsessed. Now, they will say we, with our permissive society and rude jokes, are obsessed. No. We have a healthy attitude. We like it, it’s fun, it’s jolly; because it’s a primary impulse it can be dangerous and dark and difficult.
It’s a bit like food in that respect, only even more exciting. The only people who are obsessed with food are anorexics and the morbidly obese, and that in erotic terms is the Catholic Church in a nutshell.

My contemplation is an excruciation only because it is also a joy.

Catholics have more extreme sex lives because they're taught that pleasure is bad for you. Who thinks it's normal to kneel down to a naked man who's nailed to a cross? It's like a bad leather bar.

He [Muffat] experienced a sense of pleasure mingled with remorse, the sort of pleasure peculiar to those Catholics whom the fear of hell spurs on to commit sin.

Sex has become more and more attractive because of its condemnation by priests

To become a Catholic is not to leave off thinking, but to learn how to think.

You and I are faced with one of those situations (which fortunately are not very numerous in one lifetime) which cannot possibly be adequately judged beforehand. It strikes me as a colossal gamble, or rather, a very great adventure. And personally I am considerably exhilarated by the risks! ... The greatness of the adventure perhaps consists partly in the fact that as a Catholic I can marry only once! But, as with being born, perhaps once is quite sufficient! In the Church, you know, there is a great heightening of every moment of experience, since every moment is played against a supernatural backdrop. Nothing can be humdrum in this scheme.

I wish I could throw off the thoughts which poison my happiness, and yet I take a kind of pleasure in indulging them.

Catholic, which I was until I reached the age of reason

el católico practicante siente que sus lágrimas
se secan bruscamente
su corazón late de amor
sus puños se cierran convulsivamente
le gustan tanto los militares… las camillas…
los entierros… los cementerios… las viejas piedras…
los calvarios… los santuarios… las osamentas…
...
ante las imágenes de la muerte la alegría de vivir le domina
allí arriba en el cielo ve a todos sus hermanos en Jesucristo
a todos sus hermanos en Mussolini
los arcángeles de los mataderos santos
los despanzurradores… los aviadores… los ametralladores…
toda la pandilla de nuestro señor…
está loco de alegría… está contento… se encarama a su butaca de dieciséis francos… aclama a la escuadrilla de católicos traficantes… siente que la esperanza lo invade

Be joyful because it is humanly possible.

There are times, Kruppe murmurs, when celibacy born of sad deprivation becomes a boon, nay, a source of great relief.

To a born-again atheist like myself, it is clear that each of us has multiple selves, talents, perceptions. But to the Roman Catholic, unity is all.

I’ve always found comfort in the ritual associated with my Catholicism. I find the rosary soothing. It’s almost like my meditation. And mass is a place I go to be by myself, even in the middle of the crowd. I always feel alone, just me and God. When I pray, I find myself not only praying to God, but praying to Neilia and to my mom to intercede with God for me. It’s a way of reminding myself that they are still a part of me, still inside me. And in the first hours after we lost Beau, I began to talk to him, too. It was my way to remind myself that he was still here with me, too.