John L. Allen Jr. > Quotes

“Although these cases are different, Rodríguez, Parolin and Kasper were all considered too moderate for senior leadership positions in the John Paul II and Benedict XVI years, when the top papal priority was Catholic identity.”
― John L. Allen Jr., The Francis Miracle: Inside the Transformation of the Pope and the Church

“The Lord never gets tired of forgiving. “Never,” Francis said. “We are the ones who get tired of asking him for forgiveness.”
― John L. Allen Jr., 10 Things Pope Francis Wants You to Know

“The real action in Catholicism is usually among its women.”
― John L. Allen Jr., The Francis Miracle: Inside the Transformation of the Pope and the Church

“A divorced or separated person wasn’t allowed to enter the family home, for example, and all Protestants were regarded as automatically destined for damnation. Rosa, however, broke through that rigidity, shaping a more generous faith that later flowered in the Argentine pope’s most famous line, “Who am I to judge?”
― John L. Allen Jr., The Francis Miracle: Inside the Transformation of the Pope and the Church

“constant police presence. The place’s formal”
― John L. Allen Jr., The Francis Miracle: Inside the Transformation of the Pope and the Church

“Who was it who said that after years of study I’ve come to reluctantly accept that the Roman Catholic Church must be divine, because no merely human institution governed by such imbecility could have survived a fortnight! [The line is from Hilaire Belloc.]”
― John L. Allen Jr., A People of Hope: Archbishop Timothy Dolan in Conversation with John L. Allen Jr.

“Instead, he chose the words of his paternal grandmother, Rosa. Francis often cites her, weaving her into the folksy improvisational flourishes that have become a trademark of his public rhetoric. On that Sunday, he talked about her insight into the fleeting nature of wealth, that “a burial shroud doesn’t have pockets.”
― John L. Allen Jr., The Francis Miracle: Inside the Transformation of the Pope and the Church

“That brush with mortality not only meant that Jorge Mario Bergoglio went through the rest of his life with part of one lung missing, but it also deepened his resolve to devote himself to service as a priest of the frontier—one who wouldn’t sit around waiting for hurting people to walk through the door but who would go and seek them out.”
― John L. Allen Jr., The Francis Miracle: Inside the Transformation of the Pope and the Church

“Mercy is a traditional virtue, not just in Christianity but most human cultures. It has always been on the books in official Christian teaching and is understood to be the natural complement to judgment. As a minister of the Christian gospel, Francis understands that he has to pronounce both God’s judgment and God’s mercy on a fallen world, because one without the other would be a falsification. His calculation, however, appears to be that the world has heard the Church’s judgment with crystal clarity, so now it’s time to witness its mercy.”
― John L. Allen Jr., The Francis Miracle: Inside the Transformation of the Pope and the Church

“Piqué’s situation may have been one that Bergoglio had in mind in 2012 when he angrily denounced priests who refuse to baptize children born out of wedlock, accusing those clergy of “hijacking” the sacrament and using rigid rules to preserve their own control over people’s lives. Such priests, Bergoglio said, are likely to “drive God’s people away from salvation.” He likened them to the Pharisees, reminding these priests that Jesus regularly condemned the Pharisees while spending his time with those they regarded as sinners.”
― John L. Allen Jr., The Francis Miracle: Inside the Transformation of the Pope and the Church

“For instance, his insistence on the primacy of compassion over judgment, of striving to see the best in others even when they don’t share one’s ideas, is something the pope attributes to his grandmother.”
― John L. Allen Jr., The Francis Miracle: Inside the Transformation of the Pope and the Church

“Francis is also probably the last person you'd fear meeting in a dark alley, while Pell may be the one member of the College of Cardinals you'd want by your side if a fight broke out in a Roman wine bar.”
― John L. Allen Jr., The Francis Miracle: Inside the Transformation of the Pope and the Church

“Christians today indisputably are the most persecuted religious body on the planet, and too often their new martyrs suffer in silence.”
― John L. Allen Jr., The Global War on Christians: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Anti-Christian Persecution

“What those cardinals didn’t quite grasp, however, was that they weren’t just electing a CEO who would make the Vatican’s trains run on time. They were also electing Rosa’s grandson, a believer who derived from her the lesson that real faith is more about compassion than rigidity, more about seeing good in others than finding fault, and that rhetoric is hollow if not backed by action. The cardinals thought they were electing a manager, perhaps a missionary, and what they got in the bargain was the Pope of Mercy. The Francis mission was under way.”
― John L. Allen Jr., The Francis Miracle: Inside the Transformation of the Pope and the Church

“their own presence much more visible. From a sociological point of view, the core “products” of religion include doctrine, prayer and devotion, worship, supernatural experience, and personal morality. Aside from the sacraments, there’s no reason why lay Catholic ministers can’t deliver these spiritual goods just as well as Pentecostals, indigenous shamans, or anyone else. One reason they often don’t is because no one has encouraged them to do so, but another factor is that even when they try, many people won’t feel satisfied with the exchange unless there’s a priest involved. To put the point simply, many people won’t feel that the Catholic Church really cares about them until they see a priest.”
― John L. Allen Jr., The Future Church: How Ten Trends are Revolutionizing the Catholic Church