Top 60 Blase J. Cupich Quotes

Christ receives people; because of that mercy, conversion happens.

Let’s face it: grandparents are very important to family systems. You’re babysitters, but you also instill values in children that sometimes skip a generation.

Once kids begin to realize that they are connected to a greater good and greater whole, then that will lessen the possibility that they will act out violently because it creates empathy.

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.

The church can challenge society, but society also challenges the church. That’s good. We should be humble enough to be able to accept that.

Science can and should inform debate about abortion and the law. But science does not resolve questions of moral value and moral choice.

Some pro-life advocates focus almost exclusively on the rights and suffering of the unborn baby, while some pro-choice advocates focus equally exclusively on the rights and suffering of pregnant women. This is a distortion of the moral choice that confronts us as a society.

We are a democracy, and we get the leaders we deserve because we elect them.

The death penalty confronts us with a penetrating moral question: Can even the monstrous crimes of those who are condemned to death and are truly guilty of such crimes erase their sacred dignity as human beings and their intrinsic right to life?

I always tell myself… that the faith I have is a gift, so I shouldn’t take that for granted. And so when people are struggling and feel they have no faith at all, I shouldn’t say, ‘Well, it’s their fault.’

We have to be sure we don’t pigeonhole one group as though they’re not part of the human family, as though there’s a different set of rules for them. That would be a big mistake.

Just as Cardinal Bernardin proposed that an of ethic of life be consistently applied to unite all the life issues, we need in our day to mine the church’s social teaching on solidarity.

The state and its leaders have not only a responsibility but also a vested interest in defending the sacredness and value of every human life.

Those who do not think religious organizations should have an opinion on climate change misunderstand the former and the moral dimension of the latter.

Realities are greater than ideas. Because sometimes ideas can separate us unnecessarily. So let’s attend to the realities that we have to deal with on a day-to-day basis. That’s what I want to do.

We must band together to call for gun-control legislation. We must act in ways that promote the dignity and value of human life.

In the 40 years that I’ve been a priest and the 17 as a bishop, I have experienced people coming at things in a different way. That’s the way adults are, that’s the way the world is, and that’s OK.

Our people’s faith is strong and sustains them even in times of challenge.

We want to let people know that we can build solidarity with suffering folks so that they are not excluded, they are integrated.

There is a temptation to have shortcuts and not put in the time and the effort. I think you have to be willing to talk to people and sit sometimes around a table and listen to other people.

I was really grateful to have a chance to have some really in-depth study about the power of language using a philosopher who taught at the University of Chicago by the name of Paul Ricoeur. I’m really happy to be in Chicago because a lot of what I do is rooted in his approach to language.

We are an immigrant nation.

I believe the assertion that every human life has an inherent and inalienable value will only be strengthened if we apply this principle to the morality of defending both convicted criminals and the lives of the unborn.

I don’t think sometimes people in positions of leadership in the church really engage gay and lesbian people and talk to them and get to know about their lives.

Racism is a sin and has no place in the church, including the Archdiocese of Chicago.

I would say that every pope has had people within his administration who have had difficulties one way or another with his administration.

We’re not a Church of preservation but rather a Church of proclamation. To achieve this end, we must be open to significant, if not revolutionary, changes in how the Archdiocese with its parishes and ministries is organized, how it’s resourced, how it’s staffed.

I would say the synodal church is like the word itself. It is ‘a going on the way together,’ and it is a way – whenever people walk, there are people who have been that way before who know that others have been that way before, and so they try to give direction.

Some of the greatest Christians I know are people who don’t actually have a kind of faith system that they believe in. But, in their activity, the way they conduct themselves, there’s a goodness there.

Abortion is a searing and divisive public policy issue precisely because two significant sets of rights are in conflict, and no matter which set of laws it enacts, society must choose between those rights.

Clericalism is a form of elitism in which some are viewed as having special rights and privileges.

I commend the parents who are sending their children to a Catholic school, because they’re making a sacrifice, and they’re paying twice for their child’s education: They’re paying the tuition, and they’re paying taxes.

I think that education is a pathway out of poverty for many people. It was for our family.

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.

Getting to know people as they are is very, very important.

Every school that I have ever attended, except for kindergarten, I went to a Catholic institution.

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.

We Catholics have been in the forefront in defending the dignity of the human person. Clericalism is a direct violation of human dignity.

Once we begin to make our churches safety zones in a military-style approach, we’re going to lose something of the character of our places of worship.

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.

There should be reluctance to make a national policy so inflexible that it fails to take into account the country’s diversity.

We have always wanted to make sure that we start the conversation by saying that all people are of value and their lives should be respected and that we should respect them.

Bishops need to resist the defensiveness that institutions often fall back on in crisis moments.

We are a people who have learned repeatedly throughout our history that economic distress can help us to appreciate that there are other ways to be rich that are not financial or even material.

I don’t want the abnormal or something special. I want to have a normal life.

Racism can be called our nation’s own specific ‘original sin.’

For me, the real goal is how do we make vibrant and vital faith communities that are sustainable for the long run.

When the state imposes the death penalty, it proclaims that taking one human life counterbalances the taking of another life. This assumption is profoundly mistaken.

We don’t need more divisive language or programs and policies that are going to tear the fabric of the nation apart.

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.

Our schools must be places where all are respected and the values of tolerance and peacemaking are taught and nurtured.

The Eucharist is an opportunity of grace and conversion. It’s also a time of forgiveness of sins, so my hope would be that grace would be instrumental in bringing people to the truth.

Voting for a candidate solely because of that candidate’s support for abortion or against him or her solely on the basis of his or her race is to promote an intrinsic evil. To do so consciously is indeed sinful. That is behavior incompatible with being a Christian.

People are looking for a way in which their spiritual life can be deepened. They are finding it in some of our Catholic parishes and sometimes not in others, and that opens the door for them to go elsewhere.

The long arc of history that recounts the Catholic Church’s embrace of people of all faiths and none in providing health, education, and welfare in society is as incontestable as it is impressive.

The Church is not fully Church if it lacks dialogue.