Quotable & Notable

“You go to war with the secretary of defense you have.”

-- Michael Feldman, host of the radio program “Whad’ya Know?” heard on NPR member stations

“Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld blasted the White House today for not providing him with full body armor for his acrimonious question-and-answer session with troops … saying that the lack of body armor put him in a potentially perilous situation.”

-- Andy Borowitz writing on borowitzreport.com

“You have no diocesan debt and no lawsuits pending. You don’t even have any public scandals caused by sexual abuse. Let me tell you this is the truth: You have inherited a blessed diocese.”

-- From Omaha Archbishop Elden Curtiss’ homily for the ordination of William Dendinger as bishop of Grand Island, Neb., Dec. 13. Dendinger succeeded Bishop Lawrence McNamara, who served from 1978 through 2004.

The size of God had become “too middling to command the response of genuine worship. … The newly discovered immensity of time and space appears now to swallow up our narrowly human images of God.”

-- John Haught writing in Deeper than Darwin, quoted in America magazine article “The Deep Mystery of God”

National Catholic Reporter, December 24, 2004