Religion is so frequently a source of confusion in political life, and so frequently dangerous to democracy, precisely because it introduces absolutes into the realm of relative values.

In the 17th and 18th centuries there was a kind of Protestantism that said, "If you could only get rid of the Bishop, then you'd be a true Christian".

Better not read books in which you make acquaintance of the devil.

I think that the Christian faith is right as against simple forms of secularism. That it believes that there is in man a radical freedom, and this freedom is creative but it is also destructive. And there's nothing that prevents this from being both creative and destructive.

There has been a religious revival because - let me put it like this, the people that weren't traditionally religious, conventionally religious, had a religion of their own in my youth. These were liberals who believed in the idea of progress or they were Marxists. Both of these secular religions have broken down.

The cross symbolizes a cosmic as well as historic truth. Love conquers the world, but its victory is not an easy one.

Not only in America but in Germany, in France since the war, in Germany after the First World War, the Germany of Adenauer, these are the creative relationships of Catholicism to a free society that the average American doesn't fully appreciate.