Quotable & Notable

“So what’s a pro-life, pro-family, antiwar, pro-immigrant, pro-economic-justice Catholic like me supposed to do in November?”

-- Joe Feuerherd, former NCR Washington correspondent, writing a Washington Post op-ed that criticizes the U.S. bishops’ election-year document “Faithful Citizenship” and some individual bishops for exalting abortion over other social concerns

“It’s a complicated document. It suggests that people have to think hard about their choices.”

-- Atlanta Archbishop Wilton Gregory, saying that “Faithful Citizenship” cannot be reduced to an absolute obligation to vote for a pro-life candidate, regardless of his or her stances on anything else

“Why does baloney reject the grinder?”

-- William F. Buckley Jr.’s response to U.S. Attorney General Robert F.

Kennedy’s refusal to appear on Buckley’s TV show “Firing Line.” Buckley, an intellectual credited with laying the foundations of modern American conservatism, died Feb. 26. He was 82.

“It’s a minor feast. Don’t tell that to the Irish, though.”

-- Sr. Mary Ann Walsh, spokeswoman for the U.S. Catholic bishops’ conference. The bishops are encouraging St. Patrick Day (March 17) celebrations to be rescheduled so as not to interfere with Holy Week, which begins March 16 this year.

National Catholic Reporter, March 7, 2008