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February 20, 2005
Catholics are not an elect, immune from temptation.
The Catholic Church is not a church reserved exclusively for latter-day saints. Nor is it a church that expects its ministers to be without fault. A universal church must expect trouble from universal sins. Catholics are not an elect, immune from temptation, but strivers after God who inevitably stumble and need forgiveness. The contretemps with Novatian and the Donatists highlights, again, the reality principle within the Church, and the church’s dismissal of those who would limit its benefactions to the holy few, rather than the unholy many. In Oscar Wilde's memorable phrase--and Wilde himself a deathbed convert--"The Catholic Church is for saints and sinners alone. For respectable people the Anglican Church will do."
"Triumph: The Power and the Glory of the Catholic Church," by H.W. Crocker III, hardbound (Prima Publishing 2001), pages 38-39
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