Category: Quotes

Many people say that we need the death penalty in order to have “justice for the victims.”

But so many family members of murder victims say over and over that the death penalty is not what they want. It mirrors the evil. It extends the trauma. It does not provide closure. It creates new victims… it is revenge, not justice.

Killing is the problem, not the solution.

Shane Claiborne / Sojourners

“What you are is God’s gift to you, what you become is your gift to God.”

Hans Urs von Balthasar, Swiss theologian

“It’s a strange thing to live in a country where you can be pro-war, pro-guns, pro-executions, and still say you are pro-life as long as you’re against abortion.”

from #RethinkingLife

Pope Francis must exercise his ministry as arguably the most identifiable and prominent Christian on earth. His plan has been to keep it simple and radically evangelical. Acutely aware that we are facing an extremely uncertain future, his message could be boiled down to this: wherever the world is heading, just make sure you take God with you. Yes, it’s that basic.

Robert Mickens in LaCroix

“Most of our life is unimportant, filled with trivial things from morning till night. But when it is transformed by love it is of interest even to the angels.”

Dorothy Day

One is called to live nonviolently, even if the change one works for seems impossible. It may or may not be possible to turn the US around through nonviolent revolution. But one thing favors such an attempt: the total inability of violence to change anything for the better.

Daniel Berrigan

“Do not so quickly condemn the man who no longer believes in God: for …perhaps your own coldness and avarice and mediocrity and materialism and selfishness … chilled his faith.

Thomas Merton

“The One and Triune God, dear brothers and sisters, must be manifested in this way–with deeds rather than words. God, who is the author of life, is transmitted not so much through books as through witness of life.”

Pope Francis