The Irish innovation was to make all confession a completely private affair between penitent and priest - and to make it as repeatable as necessary. (In fact, repetition was encouraged on the theory that, oh well, everyone pretty much sinned just about all the time.)
Thomas CahillHow real is history? Is it just an enormous soup so full of disparate ingredients that it is uncharacterizable?
Thomas CahillIn becoming an Irishman, Patrick wedded his world to theirs, his faith to their life…Patrick found a way of swimming down to the depths of the Irish psyche and warming and transforming Irish imagination – making it more humane and more noble while keeping it Irish.
Thomas Cahill(The festival) was awfully impersonal and abstract and there was something really gloomy about it. That's when I first started thinking about the typical view of reality.
Thomas CahillThroughout the world, half of all children go to bed hungry each night and one in seven of God's children is facing starvation. Before such statistics, believers should never forget Dostoevsky's assertion that the suffering of children is the greatest proof against the existence of God; for without justice, there is no God.
Thomas Cahill