Quotable & Notable

Emergency work under way to stop Catholic church sliding down hill

-- Headline on a story in The Catholic Herald of London about emergency restoration work on an historic church

“That the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, and that the global economic system is the fundamental cause, is the context in which the church is trying to minister all over the world. This issue is at the core of the problem of trying to proclaim the Gospel while the world is destroyed.”

-- The Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, president of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches

“A catastrophic success.”

-- President George Bush describing the war in Iraq, in the Sept. 6 issue of TIME magazine

“There’s a lot of wiggle room between an Amish dinner and a pool party at Caligula’s place.”

-- Michael Flocker, author of The Hedonism Handbook: Mastering the Lost Arts of Leisure and Pleasure, saying that Americans can introduce small (not wild) changes in their lives to help them relax more.

“People have vilified us for it, but we bet on the next manager of Manchester United [a much revered British soccer team], why not the next manager of the church.”

-- Paddy Power, Ireland’s largest bookmaker, who is taking bets on who will succeed Pope John Paul II.

National Catholic Reporter, September 10, 2004