A Lesson for the Church and for Christians — Thomas Merton

The history of the Church is a confusion of successes and apparent failures of Christianity…. The Church alone has never lost her way. But the thing that keeps her on the right way is not power, not human wisdom, not political dexterity, or diplomatic foresight. There are times in the history of the Church when these things became, for Christian leaders, stones of stumbling and sources of delusion. The thing that keeps the Church and the Christian on the right way is love. And this is necessary, because love is the highest expression of personality and of freedom. — Disputed Questions, pp. 141, 142 (Kindle)