“She continued, 'Theirs was a religion of freedom and joy and not pervaded by fanatical and morbid asceticism as some people would have us believe.' Here again I feel she is absolutely right. The critics of Catharism fail to distinguish between the Parfait and the ordinary croyant. The latter were not required to fast and mortify the flesh any more than the average Hindu or Roman Catholic, even though both Hindu and Catholic priests may regularly practise asceticism as well as meditation and other such disciplines.”

Source: The Cathars and Reincarnation (1970), p. 100

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "She continued, 'Theirs was a religion of freedom and joy and not pervaded by fanatical and morbid asceticism as some pe…" by Arthur Guirdham?
Arthur Guirdham photo
Arthur Guirdham 5
British physician, psychiatrist and writer 1905–1992

Related quotes

M. C. Chagla photo
Franklin D. Roosevelt photo

“It is a plan to abolish all existing religions — Catholic, Protestant, Mohammedan, Hindu, Buddhist, and Jewish alike.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) 32nd President of the United States

Speech: “Navy and Total Defense Day Address” (Oct. 27, 1941), Roosevelt, D. Franklin, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States (1941) vol. 10, p. 440
1940s
Context: Your Government has in its possession another document, made in Germany by Hitler’s Government… It is a plan to abolish all existing religions — Catholic, Protestant, Mohammedan, Hindu, Buddhist, and Jewish alike. The property of all churches will be seized by the Reich and its puppets. The cross and all other symbols of religion are to be forbidden. The clergy are to be forever liquidated, silenced under penalty of the concentration camps, where even now so many fearless men are being tortured because they have placed God above Hitler.

John Bright photo

“I take it that the Protestant Church of Ireland is at the root of the evils of that country. The Irish Catholics would thank us infinitely more if we were to wipe away that foul blot than they would even if Parliament were to establish the Roman Catholic Church alongside of it. They have had everything Protestant—a Protestant clique which has been dominant in the country; a Protestant Viceroy to distribute places and emoluments amongst that Protestant clique; Protestant judges who have polluted the seats of justice; Protestant magistrates before whom the Catholic peasant cannot hope for justice; they have not only Protestant but exterminating landlords, and more than that a Protestant soldiery, who at the beck and command of a Protestant priest, have butchered and killed a Catholic peasant even in the presence of his widowed mother. The consequence of all this is the extreme discontent of the Irish people. And because this House is not prepared yet to take those measures which would be really doing justice to Ireland, your object is to take away the sympathy of the Catholic priests from the people. The object is to make the priests in Ireland as tame as those in Suffolk and Dorsetshire. The object is that when the horizon is brightened every night by incendiary fires, no priest of the paid establishment shall ever tell of the wrongs of the people among whom he is living…Ireland is suffering, not from the want of another Church, but because she has already one Church too many.”

John Bright (1811–1889) British Radical and Liberal statesman

Speech in the House of Commons (16 April 1845) against the Maynooth grant, quoted in G. M. Trevelyan, The Life of John Bright (London: Constable, 1913), pp. 161-162.
1840s

Al-Biruni photo

“The Hindus believe that there is no country but theirs. no nation like theirs, no king like theirs, no religion like theirs, no science like theirs.”

Al-Biruni (973–1048) Persian scholar and polymath

Alberuni, I, p.22. quoted from K.S. Lal, Indian Muslims who are they, 1990
From Alberuni's India

Indra Nooyi photo
Mario Cuomo photo

“I protect my right to be a Catholic by preserving your right to believe as a Jew, a Protestant, or non-believer, or as anything else you choose.
We know that the price of seeking to force our beliefs on others is that they might some day force theirs on us.”

Mario Cuomo (1932–2015) American politician, Governor of New York

Religious Belief and Public Morality (1984)
Context: I protect my right to be a Catholic by preserving your right to believe as a Jew, a Protestant, or non-believer, or as anything else you choose.
We know that the price of seeking to force our beliefs on others is that they might some day force theirs on us.
This freedom is the fundamental strength of our unique experiment in government. In the complex interplay of forces and considerations that go into the making of our laws and policies, its preservation must be a pervasive and dominant concern.

Nathuram Godse photo
John Adams photo

“Can a free government possibly exist with the Roman Catholic religion?”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

1820s
Source: Letter to Thomas Jefferson (19 May 1821), published in Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN0807842303&id=SzSWYPOz6M8C&pg=PP1&lpg=PP1&ots=kTAZL3ImRq&dq=%22Adams-Jefferson+letters%22&sig=tVGzBe0XVhXaF2p0FQLGy4GK6bk#PRA2-PR17,M1 (UNC Press, 1988), p. 573

Patricia Heaton photo

“The beauty of being a Catholic is, this is not the last time I will ever see my mother, we will be together again, there’s just this period where she’s not here, and so it’s not the most desperate feeling. It’s pretty bad, but it’s not the worst.”

Patricia Heaton (1958) American actress

Source: Patricia Heaton's Catholicism Helped Her Cope with Her Mom’s Death: ‘We Will Be Together Again’ https://people.com/tv/patricia-heaton-catholicism-mom-death/ (May 17, 2018)

Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar photo

Related topics