The Church is not fully Church if it lacks dialogue.
— Blase J. Cupich
We want to let people know that we can build solidarity with suffering folks so that they are not excluded, they are integrated.
I want to be a partner with business, labor, civic leaders, foundations, other churches so that we can work together... If I can talk to all of these people and have something in common, maybe I can get them to see that they also have something in common with each other when we come together.
I take time to be with people, and I learn a lot.
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.
I think that education is a pathway out of poverty for many people. It was for our family.
Chicago is highly segregated, a fact that both causes and compounds the problems we face in bringing an end to violence.
It's important for people to give every leader the chance to step forward and look for ways to have dialogue.
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.
Getting to know people as they are is very, very important.
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.
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.
We have to learn. We have to listen to where people are. We have to listen to where the Spirit is working in the lives of people.
We want to inspire people to work together, giving them hope that we can do something even if we cannot do everything.
White supremacy is a sin. Neo-Nazism is a sin.
We have never owned, as a country, the damage done not only to people who were enslaved but to future generations in which they were treated. I think that has damaged the future of many African-American people. Some have risen above it quite nobly, but it has impacted generations, and we have to be able to own that as part of the past.
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.
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.
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 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.
I don't want the abnormal or something special. I want to have a normal life.
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.
We have to become involved in the political process - if we don't like it, we can change it.
We realize there is no political party or politician who fully takes into consideration the issues the church is about. This is nothing new to us.
Every school that I have ever attended, except for kindergarten, I went to a Catholic institution.
We're all different; we all have our ways of understanding ourselves and the way we live our lives and struggle with our humanity.
The Catholic Church is an enormous footprint in Chicago, doing a lot of good. That aspiration is felt by a lot of people - that the church succeed - because it will be good for society.
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.
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.
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.
Ultimately, it is only the witness who convinces people, not the teacher.
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.
Our people's faith is strong and sustains them even in times of challenge.
'Dialogue' is not a dirty word; it's our word.
We don't need military weapons in our society. We're not supposed to be at war with one another.
For me, the real goal is how do we make vibrant and vital faith communities that are sustainable for the long run.
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.
I am never bored in my ministry because I continually see the impact of God in people's lives.
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.
We are a democracy, and we get the leaders we deserve because we elect them.
Radical individualism can be very sad.
Once a bishop is appointed, in terms of governance, we are semi-autonomous. It's not like we are branch managers of a bank or something.
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.
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.
I grew up in a family of nine children, and I know there has to be a back and forth and a listening.
We should be with people who are in need.
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.'
Bishops need to resist the defensiveness that institutions often fall back on in crisis moments.
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.
