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 GeorgeEquality, 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 GeorgeIf 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 GeorgeChrist 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 GeorgeThe 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