Quotes About Pontiffs

A new political-entertainment class has moved into the noisy void once occupied by the sage pontiffs of yore, a class just as polarized as our partisan divide: one side holding up a fun-house mirror to folly, the other side reveling in its own warped reflection.

Aurelian consecrated the cult of the 'Invincible Sun' (Sol Invictus) in a gigantic temple, embellished with the spoils of Palmyra. He gave it a special college of pontiffs, and instituted fouryearly games. We know nothing of the special rituals applied to this Sol Invictus. The new sanctuary followed an eastern tradition, with its tholos, or dome, in the centre of a closed courtyard isolating the sacred area from the profane world.

it was impossible to imagine a religion that was distinct from civic-mindedness, and therefore a clergy marginal to the Republic. Members of the big colleges (pontiffs, augurs and the chief priest himself) were elected by the people

His successors Benedict XII and Clement VI built in stages the great papal palace at Avignon on a rock overlooking the Rhône, a huge and inharmonious mass of roofs and towers without coherent design.

After the deaths of some pontiffs, Osporco, a Roman, succeeded to the papacy; but on account of his unseemly appellation, he took the name of Sergius, and this was the origin of that change of names which the popes adopt upon their election to the pontificate.

The Roman Church has grown and grown, fueled by immigration but also renewed by two pontiffs who have seemed to understand what Tocqueville knew: People want guidance for their souls once they are convinced they have them.

The Roman Pontiffs have always...held that all those rites should be preserved which deviate neither from accuracy in matters of faith, nor from what is fitting.