Quotes from Blase J. Cupich

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.

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.

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

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

Schooling people in the ways of ongoing discernment produces a greater receptivity to the tradition of the church and at the same time creates the freedom that will make them more responsive to the will of God throughout their lives.

Catechesis, preaching, and passing on the faith must not only be about educating the members of our communities in the content of our tradition. This is important, but it must equally be about developing their spiritual sensitivity to the ways God manifests His presence and action in the world.

Here are the ingredients of a tragedy: untreated mental illness, a society where life is cheap and crime is glamorized, and a ready supply of firearms.

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

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

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.

Collaborative governance needs to be more than calling on the advice and competence of others to make up for our episcopal shortcomings. Rather, governance involves seeking how God is revealing his work through others in the community.

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.

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

We have to believe in the mercy and grace of God to trigger conversion rather than the other way around: that you're only going to get the mercy if you have a conversion. The economy of salvation doesn't work that way.

For generations, our political life was distorted by the influence of public officials whose foremost goal was to preserve the essence, if not the form, of slavery in a segregated and discriminatory social system.

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

The Church is not fully Church if it lacks dialogue.

I am never bored in my ministry because I continually see the impact of God in people's lives.

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.

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

This business of demonizing or pre-defining people by the way they look, the religion that they practice, or where they came from is not only un-American but it's going to hurt America.

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.

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.