Postscript.

"It is the uterus crying ... longing for maternity."

An unnamed priest from Szczecin, Poland, lecturing on menstruation during a premarital course.

--[Heard in Passing, Warsaw Voice (Poland), July 28, 2002.]

"If a couple had tried such a thing in the Old Testament times, the Earth would have opened and swallowed them without a trace."

Nigerian cardinal, Francis Arinze, president of the Vatican's Council for Interreligious Dialogue, speaking against same-sex marriage during World Youth Day in Toronto, Canada.

--[Canadian Press, "`Gay marriage is decadence,' Nigerian cardinal tells youth at Toronto church," July 25, 2002.]

"[A]n orchestrated plan for striking at the prestige of the Church.... [A] media campaign of persecution ... against the entire church.... This is what happened in the early centuries of Christian history--with Nero for example. This is what happened in the past century with the persecutions in Mexico, in Spain, in Nazi Germany, and in communist countries."

Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera of Mexico City, explaining the media's interest in the clergy sexual abuse crisis in the US.

--[John L. Allen, Jr., "US media in anti-church plot says Mexican prelate," National Catholic Reporter, July 19, 2002.]

"Abortion is a worse moral scandal than priests sexually abusing young people."

Archbishop George Pell of Sydney, Australia, speaking during World Youth Day in Toronto, Canada.

--[Agence France Press, "Archbishop honored for Australia's most sexist remark of the year," September 13, 2002.]

"We must refuse to feign the politically correct tolerance which imagines that all religions and convictions and values are equally valid."

Cardinal Aloysius Ambrozic of Toronto, speaking at the opening mass of World Youth Day.

--[Michael Valpy, "Schisms of theology run silent, run deep," Globe and Mail, (Canada), July 25, 2002.]

"Non-practicing, non-believing and noncontributing families will need to get in touch with the Department of Education and ask that a school with an ethos and culture similar to theirs be provided for their children."

Fr. Michael Daly, a parish priest in County Meath, Ireland, defending his prerogative to deny places at the local school from some children in the parish.

--[Catherine Shanahan, "Lapsed Catholics face school sanctions," Irish Examiner, August 12, 2002.]

"We will remember you in the next elections."

Archbishop Orlando Quevedo, president of the Catholic bishops' conference on the Philippines warning politicians who support family planning programs.

--[Rina Jiminez, "Who does the Catholic church speak for?" Philippines Daily Inquirer, August 20, 2002.]

"[The ordination of women] is a serious attack on the unity of the church. Such an action is an affront to the dignity of women, whose specific role in the church and society is distinctive and irreplaceable."

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

--[EWTN News, "Declaration on priestly ordination of Catholic women," July 10, 2002.]

"A single mother is often a girl who cut catechism classes in school or at least turned a deaf ear to religious instruction."

A commentator with the Polish Catholic weekly Niedziela, criticizing the idea that the Catholic Church should look after single mothers.

--[Heard in Passing, Warsaw Voice, (Poland), August 21, 2002.]

"This loneliness and peer rejection [that leads priests to "make sexual mistakes with male adolescents and children"] is most often a result of an inability to play baseball, basketball or soccer due to a lack of eye-hand coordination."

Richard Fitzgibbons, a psychiatrist who has treated scores of priests over the last 25 years.

--[John Burger, "Celibacy isn't the problem--it's the answer, say priests," National Catholic Register, May 19-25, 2002.]