“I was speaking to a brother priest at the time,

and we decided that if this was tried in England,

we would not be willing to refuse the people of God the sacraments again.

...But I do not believe that the sacraments are less essential.

Indeed, Jesus tells us that unless we eat his body and drink his blood, we have no life within us.

Baptism is not a nice little ceremony, but rather entrance into eternal life.

Confession is not just a form of therapy, but the means by which we are restored to the life of grace after sin.

These things are essential not just for this life, but for eternal life.

...But in the final analysis, the sacraments are not unessential.

Rather, they are the most essential things in life for they bind us to God.

They are our doorway to the life of eternity.

To love someone is to desire their greatest good and their greatest good isn't this life which certainly one day will come to an end.

The greatest good for each and every one of us is God, eternal life with Christ in heaven that we receive through his Church.

And if we don't believe that, as Catholics, what are we doing?

It is not love to deprive people of the sacraments.”

Fr. David Palmer

Diocese of Nottingham, England

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"It is not love to deprive people of the sacraments."