Category: Quotes

Notable Quotes

In that community [of Jesus], there are no second-class citizens. We had to learn that idea concerning people of color and concerning women. And now, the time has come to face the same gospel reality about LGBTQ persons as others who are welcomed as first-class citizens in the community of faithfulness and justice.  We learn that the other is not an unacceptable danger and that the other is not required to give up “otherness” in order to belong fully to the community. We in the community of faith, as in the Old and New Testaments, are always called to respond to the other as a neighbor who belongs with “us,” even as “we” belong with and for the “other.”

Walter Brueggemann, theologian

Respect for God’s Children

Whether it is people in Gaza or Ukraine or Nigeria or Iran or Minneapolis, or LGBTQ or migrants or death row inmates, we are all beloved children of God.

And all of us deserve to be treated with dignity. I think the church has been very clear about that, and I’m grateful for that. That’s not a political message; that’s the Gospel.

~ Fr. James Martin, in his book Work in Progress

Fratelli Tutti: Dialogue

Pope Francis, #198 in the encyclical

Approaching, speaking, listening, looking at, coming to know and understand one another, and to find common ground: all these things are summed up in the one word “dialogue”. If we want to encounter and help one another, we have to dialogue. There is no need for me to stress the benefits of dialogue. I have only to think of what our world would be like without the patient dialogue of the many generous persons who keep families and communities together. Unlike disagreement and conflict, persistent and courageous dialogue does not make headlines, but quietly helps the world to live much better than we imagine.