A bishop condescendingly asked John Henry Newman, "Who are the laity?" To which the great saint, and, one hopes, future Doctor of the Church, replied that the Church would look foolish without them.

A mark of first-rate thinkers is their ability to make complex theories understandable. 

When I use the language of "morals," my students are self-proclaimed relativists.

'The crisis of the Church is at its core a crisis of the clergy.'

The public intellectual sees the story as a warning about idolizing the intellect (rationalism) and pursuing heaven on earth (utopia).

Ralph Waldo Emerson had moments more perceptive than his vague religiosity: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines."

Reasoning has acquired a sketchy, even negative, reputation in recent years. 

Recently, a priest who was prominent in the pastoral care of those with sex addictions received his fifteen minutes of fame when he revealed to his congregation at a Sunday Mass and to the "National Catholic Reporter" that he was
gay." 

As a chaplain in a state mental hospital, I quickly learned two things.

Annals new and old are filled with quotations that most people can recognize.