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

Parishes must be the safest places for a child to be.

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.

We are a people unafraid to welcome 'your tired, your poor, your huddled masses,' because we measure others by the quality of their hopes for the future, not by the circumstances of their birth.

Hope in the future is deeply rooted in our national psyche. It is part of the soul of our nation.

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.

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.

The existence of slavery cast the shadow of hypocrisy over the otherwise noble proclamation of the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in our Declaration of Independence.

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

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

The Second Amendment was passed in an era when organized police forces were few and citizen militias were useful in maintaining the peace.

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.

Pope Francis tells us who he is by pointing to Caravaggio's St. Matthew: 'Here, this is me, a sinner on whom the Lord has turned his gaze.' He is telling us that he has experienced the same rush of speechless wonder and graced love Caravaggio depicts in his painting.

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.

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.