How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
I feel sorry for the beautiful Protestant girls, they're doomed. That's what the priests tell us. Outside the Catholic Church there is no salvation. Outside the Catholic Church there is nothing but doom. And I want to save them. Protestant girl, come with me to the True Church. You'll be saved and you won't have the doom. (7.18)
If you're not Catholic you're doomed. It's that simple. The residents of Limerick consider Protestants to be out-of-control drinkers and fornicators who think nothing of using birth control or getting divorces. It's all the fault of Henry VIII.
Quote #8
I wonder if the priest is asleep because he's very quiet till he says, My child, I sit here. I hear the sins of the poor. I assign the penance. I bestow absolution. I should be on my knees washing their feet. Do you understand me, my child?
I tell him I do but I don't.
Go home child, pray for me. (7.142)
Frank's come to confess his sin of stealing fish and chips because he was hungry. The priest asked why he didn't ask his mother for something to eat and he explained that he was out in the street looking for his father in the pubs after his father drank up the money for baby Alphie. The priest is speechless. He's a priest who realizes he should be helping the poor and realizes the limitations of what he can do by absolution alone. Forgiving sins is great, but it doesn't keep people from starving. Unlike the wealthy priests who look down at the poor, this man knows he should be serving them as Jesus would have done.
Quote #9
And why does [The Virgin Mary] weep, boys? She weeps because of you and what you are doing to her Beloved Son. She weeps when she […] beholds in horror the spectacle of Limerick boys defiling themselves, polluting themselves, interfering with themselves, abusing themselves, soiling their young bodies […]. Oh, boys, the devil wants your souls. He wants you with him in hell and know this, that every time you interfere with yourselves, […] you not only nail Christ to the cross you take another step closer to hell itself. (13.80)
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