"Peace is not just the absence of war but rather in sharing the goodness of life together; peace must be built and not declared."From the CRS Visionary Direction Statement
"Houses should have four walls."priest aid worker
"The church is nothing if it is not missionary."Pope John Paul II
"Rights are inefficient. Fair procedures are inefficient. Constitutional limitations are inefficient. Democratic dialogue is inefficient. Self-government is inefficient. Nonconformity is inefficient. The managerial system is impatient with all of these. If the cheap labor of an authoritarian country can lower the cost of a product, management prefers that choice to the work of individuals endowed with rights and dignity."Charles A. Reich
"To work for peace requires that we speak truth to power. Therefore, advocacy must play an important role in who we are and what we do."from the Caritas vision paper Pursuing the Right to Peace
"We are to keep talking about justice issues, about the economy as it affects people around the world and in our own nation, about the role of women, about abortion and other life issues like capital punishment, about immigration and about human rights.Archbishop Thomas Kelly, O.P.And sometimes, when others are silent, the church must assume a stance that is counter- cultural and prophetic."
"Government is a teacher, for good or for bad, but government should set the example. I do not believe that government engaging in violence or retribution is the right example. You don't solve violence by committing violence."John O'Hair
"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."Professor Albus Dumbledore
"We must learn to trust the believers with their 'sensus fidelium' and the creative Spirit that animates them, being open to the future in hope rather than continually looking to the past in the name of tradition. Faith and hope do not contradict each other."Amaladoss
"The real evil in the world is not the spectacular, the occasional, the vividly catastrophic. The real evil lies in our neglect of causes, our indifference to conditions, our unwillingness to give the time, the money, and the effort to stop preventable disaster."Sydney Harris
"Justice will be achieved only when those, who are not injured, feel as indignant as those who are."Anonymous
"I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past."William Faulkner
"It would be a better world if more people got more sleep, or at least spent more time in bed."Robert Fulghum
"The greatest myth or misunderstanding (about the true nature of the Catholic Church) is imagining the church as having all the answers or accusing the church of thinking that it has all the answers. The first view is idolatrous; the second, as superficial as the view it rejects. The church lives by faith, not by answers. So, of course, must its members: They must take the risk of faith and not seek another security."Rev. James Dallen
"Who we listen to determines what we hear. Where we stand determines what we see. What we do determines who we are."Robert McAffee Brown
"The Indians have never taken kindly to the Christian religion as preached and practiced by the whites…. We pay no lawyers or preachers, but we have not one-tenth part of the crime that you do. If our Messiah does come, we shall not try to force you into our belief. We will never burn innocent women at the stake or pull men to pieces with horses because they refuse to join in our ghost dances…. The white man's heaven is repulsive to the Indian nature, and if the white man's hell suits you, why, you keep it. I think there will be white rogues enough to fill it."An American Indian
"You are graduating into a nation and world teetering on the brink of moral and economic bankruptcy. Since 1980 our president and congress have been bringing good news to the rich at the expense of the poor…. Children are the major victims…. Yet governments throughout the world, led by our own, spend over $600 billion a year on arms…. Where are the strong political voices speaking out for investing in children rather than bombs; mothers rather than missiles? …Pick a piece of the problem that you can help solve."Marian Wright Edelman
"We live in a slum neighborhood. It is becoming ever more crowded with Puerto Ricans, those who have the lowest wages in the city, who do the hardest work, who are small and undernourished from generations of privation and exploitation…. I am sure that God did not intend that there be so many poor. The class structure is of our making and by our consent, not His, and we must do what we can to change it. So we are urging revolutionary changes."Dorothy Day
"There are many bitter memories (between Christians and Muslims). But we cannot deny the existence of one another. We cannot try to wipe each other out--we tried that and it failed. We must now find ways to live with each other."Kamel Al-Sharif
"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that National morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle. Morality cannot be maintained without religion."George Washington
"Be patient with everyone, but above all with yourself. I mean, do not be disturbed because of your imperfections, and always rise up bravely after a fall."St. Francis de Sales
"Reconciling means becoming liberated from the confining obsessive desires to keep score, to seek revenge, to prolong hostility."Martin Marty
A gospel that doesn't unsettle, a Word of God that doesn't get under anyone's skin, a Word of God that doesn't touch the real sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed, what Gospel is that?Archbishop Oscar Romero
"People who pray for miracles usually don't get miracles.... But people who pray for courage, for strength to bear the unbearable, for the grace to remember what they have left instead of what they have lost, very often find their prayers answered. Their prayers helped them tap hidden reserves of faith and courage that were not available to them before."Harold Kushner
"If we really care about someone, we do something that shows it. Anything else is talk."Joan Chittister, OSB
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