Unmovable: God does not change, the Truth does not change, the Church does not change

"God is not man that he should speak falsely, nor human, that he should change his mind. Is he one to speak and not act, to decree and not fulfill?" (Num. 23:19)

"Of old you laid the earth's foundations; the heavens are the work of your hands. They perish, but you remain; they all wear out like a garment; Like clothing you change them and they are changed, but you are the same, your years have no end." (Ps. 102:26-28)

"He plumbs the depths and penetrates the heart; their innermost being he understands. The Most High possesses all knowledge, and sees from of old the things that are to come: He makes known the past and the future, and reveals the deepest secrets. No understanding does he lack; no single thing escapes him. Perennial is his almighty wisdom; he is from all eternity one and the same, with nothing added, nothing taken away; no need of a counselor for him!" (Sirach 42:18-22)

"Even to your old age I am the same, even when your hair is gray I will bear you; It is I who have done this, I who will continue, and I who will carry you to safety." (Isa. 46:4)

"Surely I, the LORD, do not change, nor do you cease to be sons of Jacob." (Mal. 3:6)

"Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever." (Heb. 13:8)

"Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers: all good giving and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no alteration or shadow caused by change." (Jms. 1:16-17)

"Anyone who is so 'progressive' as not to remain in the teaching of the Christ does not have God; whoever remains in the teaching has the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do not receive him in your house or even greet him; for whoever greets him shares in his evil works." (St. John, 2 Jn. 1:9-11)

"Though all things pass God does not change. Consider seriously how quickly people change, and how little trust is to be had in them; and hold fast to God, who does not change." (St. Teresa of Avila, Doctor of the Church)

"Eternity itself is the substance of God, which has nothing that is changeable. There is nothing there that is past, as if it were no longer; nothing there is future, as if it not yet were. There is nothing there except 'is'." (St. Augustine, Doctor of the Church, c. 5th century A.D.)

"Christ is the teacher and the exemplar of all sanctity, and to His standard must all those conform who wish for eternal life. Nor does Christ know any change as the ages pass, 'for He is yesterday and today and the same forever. (Hebrews xiii, 8)" (Pope Leo XIII, "Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae", 1899)

"Progress of dogmas is, in reality, nothing but the corruption of dogmas." (Pope St. Pius X, "Lamentabili Sane", 1907)

"Things that are of natural law vary according to the various states and conditions of men; although those which naturally pertain to things Divine nowise vary." (St. Thomas Aquinas, Doctor of the Church)

"If anyone says that it is possible that at some time, given the advancement of knowledge, a sense may be assigned to the dogmas propounded by the Church which is different from that which the Church has understood and understands: let him be anathema." (First Vatican Council)

"The Holy Spirit was not promised to the successor of Peter that by the revelation of the Holy Spirit they might disclose new doctrine, but that by His help they might guard sacredly the revelation transmitted through the Apostles and the deposit of faith, and might faithfully set it forth." (First Vatican Council)

"For the doctrine of the faith which God has revealed is put forward not as some philosophical discovery capable of being perfected by human intelligence, but as a divine deposit committed to the spouse of Christ to be faithfully protected and infallibly promulgated. Hence, too, that meaning of the sacred dogmas is ever to be maintained which has once been declared by Holy Mother Church, and there must never be any abandonment of this sense under the pretext or in the name of a more profound understanding. May understanding, knowledge and wisdom increase as ages and centuries roll along, and greatly and vigorously flourish, in each and all, in the individual and the whole church: but this only in its own proper kind, that is to say, in the same doctrine, the same sense, and the same understanding." (First Vatican Council)

"Finally, I declare that I am completely opposed to the error of the modernists who hold that there is nothing divine in sacred tradition; or what is far worse, say that there is, but in a pantheistic sense, with the result that there would remain nothing but this plain simple fact - one to be put on a par with the ordinary facts of history - the fact, namely, that a group of men by their own labor, skill, and talent have continued through subsequent ages a school begun by Christ and his apostles. I firmly hold, then, and shall hold to my dying breath the belief of the Fathers in the charism of truth, which certainly is, was, and always will be in the succession of the episcopacy from the apostles. The purpose of this is, then, not that dogma may be tailored according to what seems better and more suited to the culture of each age; rather, that the absolute and immutable truth preached by the apostles from the beginning may never be believed to be different, may never be understood in any other way." (Pope St. Pius X, Oath Against Modernism, 1910 A.D.)

"It is well known that to the Church there belongs no right whatsoever to innovate anything touching on the substance of the sacraments." (Pope St. Pius X, "Ex quo", 1910 A.D.)

"Nothing of the things appointed ought to be diminished; nothing changed; nothing added; but they must be preserved both as regards expression and meaning." (Pope St. Agatho)

"It is with no less deceit, venerable brothers, that other enemies of divine revelation, with reckless and sacrilegious effrontery, want to import the doctrine of human progress into the Catholic religion. They extol it with the highest praise, as if religion itself were not of God but the work of men, or a philosophical discovery which can be perfected by human means... Our holy religion was not invented by human reason, but was most mercifully revealed by God; therefore, one can quite easily understand that religion itself acquires all its power from the authority of God who made the revelation, and that it can never be arrived at or perfected by human reason." (Bl. Pope Pius IX, "Qui Pluribus", 1846 A.D.)

"Let them innovate in nothing, but keep the traditions." (Pope Saint Stephen, c. 254-257)

"When one lives by novelty, there will always have to be a new novelty." (Archbishop Fulton Sheen)

"Presumptuous innovations arise from vainglory." (Pope St. Gregory the Great, Doctor of the Church)

"Far, far from the clergy be the love of novelty!" (Pope St. Pius X, "Pascendi Dominici Gregis", 1907 A.D.)

"Do you see how the desire of novelty, with its attendant error, lands you in great difficulties?" (St. Augustine, Doctor of the Church)

"We resolved to discuss these things so that, with the errors of those men revealed, it might become known where the wicked passion for introducing novelties into the Church might lead." (Pope Gregory XVI, "Quo Graviora", 1833 A.D.)

"We observe with considerable anxiety and some misgiving, that elsewhere certain enthusiasts, over-eager in their search for novelty, are straying beyond the path of sound doctrine and prudence. Not seldom, in fact, they interlard their plans and hopes for a revival of the sacred liturgy with principles which compromise this holiest of causes in theory or practice, and sometimes even taint it with errors touching Catholic faith and ascetical doctrine." (Pope Pius XII, "Mediator Dei", 1947 A.D.)

"But the evil one never stops trying to smother the seeds of religion with his own tares and is for ever inventing some novelty or other against the truth; so the Master, exercising his usual care for the human race, roused this religious and most faithful emperor to zealous action, and summoned to himself the leaders of the priesthood from everywhere, so that through the working of the grace of Christ, the master of all of us, every injurious falsehood might be staved off from the sheep of Christ and they might be fattened on fresh growths of the truth." (Council of Chalcedon)

"Truth is essentially unchangeable. But man is very changeable. The stability of all great and good things is a high value... But what is important to us here is the value of stability as opposed to change, as far as it is a matter of something good and beautiful... The structure of the whole liturgical year and the Tridentine Mass was something great and wonderful. It was of greatest pastoral importance as a way of drawing us up from the whole mediocrity of everyday life, indeed from the finite and worldly sphere into the world of supernatural mystery, into the world of Christ. Here the thought of a change and reform is meaningless. This is not only because we live in a time in which the talent for the formation of the liturgy is very weak, as we already mentioned, but also because this work has been entrusted to 'experts', and not to men who are filled with great reverence for that which has been handed down to us from earlier, glorious times - indeed entrusted to men who base their work on a false diagnosis of our time, on the myth of 'modern man.' But what we want to emphasize here is the value of stability, the value which lies in praying in the same way in which the saints and 'homines religioisi' of the past prayed... Changing for the sake of change is not only an infantile procedure, but leads to a disastrous confusion in its pedagogical effects." (Von Hildebrand)