Jamie Arpin-Ricci has a good quote up on his blog at the moment from a book I’m not familiar with, Morris West’s The Shoes of the Fisherman The Shoes of the Fisherman:

“I’ve thought about it often,” said Leone heavily. “If I didn’t marry- and [I’m], not sure but that’s what I needed to make me halfway human- I’d be a country priest with just enough theology to hear confession, and just enough Latin to get through Mass and the sacramental formulae. But with heart enough to know what griped in the guts of other men and made them cry into their pillows at night. I’d sit in front of my church on a summer evening and read my office and talk about the weather and the crops, and learn to be gentle to the poor and humble with the unhappy ones… You know what I am now? A walking encyclopaedia of dogma and theological controversy. I can smell out an error faster than a Dominican. And what does it mean? Nothing. Who cares about theology except the theologians? We are necessary, but less important than we think. The Church is Christ- Christ and the people. And all the people want to know is whether or not there is a God, and what is His relation with them, and how they can get back to Him when they stray.”

“Large questions,” said Rinaldi gently, “not to be answered by small minds or gross ones.”

Jamie leaves it with the sometimes ominous question, “What does this quote say to you?”

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