When the kids were growing up, we didn't have a television in the house connected to a cable or an antenna. If something bad happened in the world, I wanted the kids to hear about it from me.

Some of us have been told what we want our whole lives. We've been told we should want to go out for sports or not. We should want a college education or a graduate degree or a particular career. We should want to date this person and not the other.

I have the sense that whoever here on earth we couldn't get along with, Jesus will make us roommates in Heaven.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, I rushed home before the kids left for school and gathered them around our dining room table and told them what had happened. Like everyone else, we struggled for words to describe to our kids why such a thing would occur.

We are insisting and we will continue to insist that this faith of the church must continue to be upheld come rain, come fire. That is our position.

The strong creation created by God in the world is not the lion, not the elephant, not the tiger - the girl.

I wouldn't call myself religious. I'm spiritual. Everybody's a bit more so as you get older. I'm a cultural Catholic; it's inescapable, but I think I have to believe.

To study history means submitting to chaos and nevertheless retaining faith in order and meaning.