"I am just as deaf as I am blind. The problems of deafness are deeper
	and more complex, if not more important than those of blindness. Deafness 
	is a much worse misfortune. For it means the loss of the most vital 
	stimulus--the sound of the voice that brings language, sets thoughts astir, 
	and keeps us in the intellectual company of man." 		

	"Biblically speaking, to repent doesn't mean to feel sorry about, to regret. 
	It means to turn, to turn around 180 degrees. It means to undergo a complete
	change of mind, heart, direction. Turn away from madness, cruelty, shallowness,
	blindness. Turn toward the tolerance, compassion, sanity, hope, justice that 
	we all have in us at our best." 	

	"Very often people object that nonviolence seems to imply 
	passive acceptance of injustice and evil and therefore that 
	it is a kind of cooperation with evil. Not at all. The 
	genuine concept of nonviolence implies not only active and 
	effective resistance to evil but in fact a more effective
	resistance... But the resistance which is taught in the Gospel
	is aimed not at the evil-doer but at evil in its source."
	

	"Coke and Pepsi bottle municipal tap water as "Dasani" and "Aquafina" 
	and sell it to us at twice the cost of gasoline.  Bottle water is a 
	triumph of perceived need over reason--the greatest marketing coup in history."   		

	"Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds 
	most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, 
	well-warmed, and well-fed."  		

	"In his World Mission Sunday message, Pope Benedict said the primary task 
	of every Catholic is to bring the Gospel to a world debased by poverty, 
	violence, and human rights abuses.  Individual Catholics must see themselves 
	not simply as 'collaborator' in the church's evangelizing mission but as being 
	'protagonists' and jointly responsible for carrying it out."		

	"The best hope of defusing anti-Americanism and restoring our country’s 
	international standing lies in a renewed commitment to the values that 
	make it great, including respect for civil liberties and international law. 
	That will require a change of attitude, as well as personnel, much higher up--
	in the Oval Office."		

	"From regime changes, to disengagement in Palestine, to tariffs, 
	to violating key treaties and refusing to sign others, our foreign 
	policy has been reduced to arrogant self-interest.  In one year, 
	Bush has transformed worldwide sympathy toward America into universal 
	resentment.  It's gotten so bad I had to pretend I was Canadian." 		

	"I remember about eight years ago when then presidential candidate 
	George W. Bush repeatedly claimed that he would restore honor to the 
	presidency, soiled as it had been by our previous president's infamous 
	affair. I remember hoping he would succeed. But a new kind of shame 
	has come to the office and to our nation as reports surface about our 
	government's secret authorization of torture. We all share in this shame."   		

	"The only real prison is fear,
	and the only real freedom is freedom from fear."  		

	"In The New York Times story about the administration's secret 
	authorization of torture, one sentence is particularly chilling: 
	'With virtually no experience in interrogations, the CIA had constructed 
	its program in a few harried months by consulting Egyptian and Saudi 
	intelligence officials and copying Soviet interrogation methods long 
	used in training American servicemen to withstand capture.'

	Copying tactics used by Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the former Soviet Union...
	what does this say about our nation's trajectory?"		

	"This administration has done more for the environment and 
	addressing energy security and climate change than any other in history."	

	"Let no one be discouraged by the belief there is nothing one man or 
	one woman can do against the enormous array of the world's ills, against 
	misery and ignorance, injustice and violence. ... Few will have the 
	greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change 
	a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be 
	written the history of our generation."	

	"How old would you be if you didn't know how old you are?"	

	“I think there is no suffering greater than what is 
	caused by the doubts of those who want to believe. 
	What people don’t realize is how much religion costs. 
	They think faith is a big electric blanket, when 
	of course it is the cross. It is much harder to believe 
	than not to believe.”		

	"There have been many [clergy or pastoral workers] before us  who started off 
	speaking about God, but gradually moved toward speaking for God.  After that, 
	it is a short step to speaking as if you are God."  

	“Christianity, Catholicism, isn’t a collection of prohibitions: 
	it’s a positive option.”		

	"The United States of America is using an obscene 22 million barrels 
	of oil per day, 12 million barrels of which are imported from Saudi Arabia.
	Four years ago, the United States invaded Iraq to capture the Middle East`s 
	oil. No other country uses even 2 million barrels of oil per day. It is the 
	burning of these fossil fuels which is causing the global warming catastrophe 
	now upon us." 	

	"It makes one wonder about the illegal-alien fuss.  Are the 
	great numbers of our unemployed really victims of the illegal-alien 
	invasion or are those illegal tourists actually doing work our own people 
	won't do?  One thing is certain in this hungry world: no regulation or 
	law should be allowed if it results in crops rottng in the fields for 
	lack of harvesters."

	"I believe the basis for valid political action can only be 
	the recognition that the true solution to our problems is not 
	accessible to any one isolated party or nation but that all 
	must arrive at it by working together." 

	"The earth provides enough resources for everyone's need,
	but not for some people's greed."

	"But perhaps in the overly partisan mistakes that Jerry Falwell made
	--and actually pioneered--we can all be instructed in how to forge a 
	faith that is principled but not ideological, political but not partisan, 
	engaged but not used. That's how the Catholic Bishops put it, and it is 
	a better guide than the direction we got from the Moral Majority." 		

	"It is not scientific doubt, not atheism, not pantheism, 
	not agnosticism, that in our day and in this land is likely 
	to quench the light of the gospel. It is a proud, sensuous, 
	selfish, luxurious, church-going, hollow-hearted prosperity."

	"In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce man: brave, hated,
	and scorned. When his cause succeeds, however, the timid join him, for then 
	it costs nothing to be a patriot."

	"The citizen who sees his society's democratic clothes being worn out
	and does not cry out is not a patriot but a traitor."		

	"I’ve always heard the old adage, "violence is a weapon of the weak." But 
	after events like the Virginia Tech massacre, it’s easy to think that 
	violence has ultimate power. After all, we’ve learned history through the 
	lens of war. And we read the news through acts of violence rather than the 
	hidden acts of love that keep hope alive. But there is a common thread in 
	many of the most horrific perpetrators of violence that begs our attention-–
	they kill themselves. Violence kills the image of God in us. It is a cry of 
	desperation, a weak and cowardly cry of a person suffocated of hope. Violence 
	goes against everything that we are created for – to love and to be loved--
	so it inevitably ends in misery and suicide. When people succumb to violence 
	it ultimately infects them like a disease or a poison that leads to their 
	own death." 		

	"Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, 
	and your government when it deserves it."		

	"In 2005, an average Chief Executive Officer was paid 821 times as much 
	as a minimum wage earner, who earns just $5.15 an hour.  An average CEO 
	earns more before lunchtime on the very first day of work in the year 
	than a minimum-wage worker earns all year."

	"Because Jesus' teachings are so challenging and radical, it is 
	much more comfortable to focus on a quiet, private, personal 
	relationship with him than it is to follow his teachings that 
	call for a public prophetic witness."

"I’m one of those pro-life Christians who is convinced that the outrageous number of abortions each year is more due to right-wing economic policies than to Roe v. Wade. In a society where many poor women must work outside the home at a ridiculously low minimum wage just to survive, yet have no access to daycare for their children, we should not be surprised if they seek abortion when faced with an unplanned pregnancy. Yet many of the Religious Right Christians who share my pro-life sentiments tend to oppose enacting legislation that would enable poor women to give birth and keep their children. No wonder one of our critics says, “Evangelicals are people who believe that life begins at conception and ends at birth.” Too often it seems as if we care about protecting the unborn, but we’re not willing to provide for the born." Tony Campolo in PRISM ePistle

	“When Cardinal Bernard Law resigned for not telling the truth 
	about pedophile priests, Rome gave him a promotion, a position 
	on five of the curial congregations of the church, St. Mary Major,
	one of the four principal churches in Rome, and a luxurious Roman
	apartment. On the other hand, this bishop, Bishop Thomas Gumbleton,
	told the truth, even about his having been abused by a priest himself
	when he was a young seminarian. Most of all, he took the position that
	it is the obligation of bishops to bring transparency, accountability
	and justice to the plight of sex abuse victims, whatever the financial
	ramifications for the church itself….the question looms large for all
	of us: What is going on in a church that stamps out the light?” 		

	"The only purpose of the gospel is to reconcile people to God 
	and to each other. A gospel that doesn't reconcile is not a 
	Christian gospel at all. But in America, it seems as if we 
	don't believe that. We don't really believe that the proof 
	of our discipleship is that we love one another (see John 13:35). 
	No, we think the proof is in numbers ... Even if our "converts" 
	continue to hate each other, even if they will not worship with 
	their brothers and sisters in Christ, we point to their "conversion" 
	as evidence of the gospel's success. We have substituted a gospel of 
	church growth for a gospel of reconciliation."	

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