I grew up in a family of nine children, and I know there has to be a back and forth and a listening.
People think sometimes there is a 'Catholic vote' because of one particular issue. This demeans who we are as a Catholic community. We should take the whole thing... We take everything.
Society cannot escape what is essentially a moral question: When does human life deserve legal protection from the state? And society certainly cannot escape this dilemma by denying that it is fundamentally a moral issue, no matter what position one chooses.
Ultimately, it is only the witness who convinces people, not the teacher.
The Church is not fully Church if it lacks dialogue.
The nation's children, families, poor, workers, and senior citizens deserve more than lip service. They deserve more than outrage. They deserve real support, protection, and solid action.
My folks were very practical. They were also kind of able to think outside of the box. They were not going to let circumstance paralyze them. They knew sometimes you just had to take some new initiative. I think they passed that on to all of us... If you don't find a way, you make one.
There is a synergy between the way Croatians approach life and the way Jesuits do. Croatians are very real about situations. We don't gloss over things. If there are issues to deal with, you deal with them.
People should be called the way that they want to be called rather than us coming up with terms that maybe we're more comfortable with.
We help immigrants because we are an immigrant nation, and we are an immigrant church. We've always done that; this is nothing new to us. This is not a new venture for us. It's who we are and have been from the very beginning of the history of the Catholic Church in this country.
Listen, talk, be respectful of people - and make sure that you have openness to where people are coming from. And you don't do anything that is unnecessarily antagonistic, that is only going to make you feel good because you've done it.
Hope in the future is deeply rooted in our national psyche. It is part of the soul of our nation.
If we create a framework for decision-making that is biased toward life, supportive of families, and fair to people of all circumstances, our policies, legislation, and commercial decisions will be vastly different.
The Second Amendment was passed in an era when organized police forces were few and citizen militias were useful in maintaining the peace.
