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I have to say that I have no regrets about my decision to become a priest or about the major directions my ministry has taken me... I have been and am happy as a priest, and I have never been lonely... I could have used a bit more solitude.

Andrew Greeley

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Andrew Greeley
Age: 85 †
Born: 1928
Born: February 5
Died: 2013
Died: May 29
Catholic Priest
Journalist
Novelist
Priest
Sociologist
University Teacher
Writer
Oak Park
Illinois
Andrew M. Greeley
Andrew Moran Greeley
Regret
Regrets
Bits
Directions
Decision
Ministry
Taken
Priests
Happy
Solitude
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Never
Lonely
Priest

More quotes by Andrew Greeley

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It was generally believed that Catholics were not interested in arts and science graduate schools. They weren't going to be intellectuals. And so I put the theses to the test. And they all collapsed.
Andrew Greeley
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We are born with two incurable diseases, life, from which we die, and hope, which says maybe death isn't the end.
Andrew Greeley
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Would it not be much better to have a president who deliberately lied to the people because he thought a war was essential than to have one who was so dumb as to be taken in by intelligence agencies, especially those who told him what he wanted to hear?
Andrew Greeley
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People came into the Church in the Roman Empire because the Church was so good-Catholics were so good to one another, and they were so good to pagans, too. High-pressure evangelization strikes me as an attempt to deprive people of their freedom of choice.
Andrew Greeley
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The seminaries must face the fact that they are not turning out well-trained professional clergy. They must realize that preaching is creative work and that some element of creativity should be required as a condition for ordination.
Andrew Greeley
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In God, the characteristics of men and women that we admire in men and women are combined. That's been a traditional Catholic teaching that God is the combination of opposites.
Andrew Greeley
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I don't think Jesus was an exclusivist. He said, and we believe, that He is the unique representation of God in the world. But that doesn't mean this is the only way God can work.
Andrew Greeley
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Note the three most important Cabinet positions. Rice said that it was better to find the weapons of mass destruction than to see a mushroom cloud.
Andrew Greeley
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God draws straight with crooked lines.
Andrew Greeley
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One cannot escape the harsh fact that as a ministerial profession, the priesthood has very serious problems. They are not new. They did not develop yesterday or last year.
Andrew Greeley
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Is the patience of the American people that long suffering? Is there no outrage left in the country?
Andrew Greeley
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Nobody puts constraints on God. She doesn't like it.
Andrew Greeley
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If there is not laughter in intimacy, it becomes heavy, burdensome, and dull. At my best moments, the love dialogue I try to carry on with You each day is comic-what could be more comic than a human addressing the Ground of Being as an intimate? It's a kind of blasphemy that I dare because you have called for it, and that is pretty humorous, too.
Andrew Greeley
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The kernel is the belief that God is love and, in Catholicism, God's love is present in the world. It is in the sacraments, in the Eucharist, in our families, in our friends, in our neighborhood, and forgiveness in the touch of a friendly hand, in a rediscovered love God is there.
Andrew Greeley
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I write easily, let's put it that way. And in a novel particularly, the characters take over. And they tell me what to say and they tell me what they're doing. And I'm a third of the way into a novel and then I just let the characters finish it for me.
Andrew Greeley
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Everyone takes surveys. Whoever makes a statement about human behavior has engaged in a survey of some sort.
Andrew Greeley
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When I can go just where I want to go, There is a copse of birch trees that I know And, as in Eden Adam walked with God, When in that quiet aisle my feet have trod I have found peace among the silver trees, Known comfort in the cool kiss of the breeze Heard music in its whisper, and have known Most certainly that I was not alone!
Andrew Greeley
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I wouldn't say the world is my parish, but my readers are my parish. And especially the readers that write to me. They're my parish. And it's a responsibility that I enjoy.
Andrew Greeley
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If we get you in the early years of your life and we fill your head with all of the Catholic stories, then it's very hard for you to stop being Catholic. Catholics are Catholics because they like being Catholic.
Andrew Greeley
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Since the end of the World War II, the United States has fought three small wars...we lost all three of them and for the same reason-hubris.
Andrew Greeley