CAPG's Blog 

We live in a country and in a period of restless activity, of advertising and being advertised, of nervous anxiety for results almost at any cost. How sad to see priests caught up and carried away by the flood, losing the merit of their lives, not to say their very souls, while saving others! 

Like those of whom Our Lord speaks, they prophesy by the earnestness of their preaching; they cast ou devils by the power of the sacraments; they work wonders of material construction and organization; but they are sustained in it all and borne along chiefly by natural impulse, by exuberant activity, by the spirit of pride, by the desire to be talked of by their people and by their fellow priests, by all manner of human motives worthless in the sight of God. 

 Only at the judgment of God - "on that day"- will they know, will the world know, in what depths of spiritual poverty they have lived and died.

source: Daily Thoughts for Priests, Fr. John B. Hogan

Our brethren of the laity often complain of the priest they get; I wonder, does it ever occur to them to pray for better? When the Ember seasons come round, how many people remember to pray for the priests who are being ordained? We pile the sanctuary with flowers, we make it a blaze of candles; but there is something else needed far more than lights of flowers for God's honor, that the hearts of his priest should be made a fit habitation for Himself. Of his priests? Not of His priests only, but our own hearts too.

Source: Pastoral Sermons and Occasional Sermons, The Eucharist, Fr. Ronald Knox

"Pray, pray for your priests; every nation, every diocese gets the clergy it deserves.
We priests are only earthen vessels, you know for yourselves many of the shortcomings,
hasty temper and slovenly habits and so on, by which we often disgrace the livery we wear.
But, when you observe such things, you merely shrug your shoulders, and say,
"Pity Father So-and-so isn't more like poor Canon So-and-so". You should be on your knees,
this next week, praying for the clergy everywhere, from the Holy Father himself down to the
new priests [...]; praying for the seminaries too, the factories where the tools of Christ are made.
God protect His Church in the anxious, bewildered days that are coming; and give us supply of
good priests to work as the martyrs worked, to live as the martyrs lived, and if need be to die as
the martyrs died, to the glory of His Holy Name."

Source: Monsignor Ronald Knox, Priesthood, Pastoral Sermons and Occasional Sermons

"Priests, do not forget that priestly gravity and propriety must characterize your ministry, whereas everything which tends towards secular habits, shows up the priest as vain and flighty in the eyes of the world which is perfectly able to discern the more respectable priests even from their outward bearing."

Source: Recipe for Holiness: Saint Pius X and the Priest

"Only two means are left to save Her (the Church) amidst so much confusion: Frequent Communion and Devotion to Mary most holy, making use of every means and doing our best to practice them and having them practiced everywhere and by everybody."

"When speaking of public scandals:
Don’t be surprised at anything. People and waywardness go hand in hand. The Church has nothing to fear because even if all were to conspire to overthrow Her, the Holy Spirit would still uphold Her."