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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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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
Like
Catholic
Early
Head
Stop
Stories
Hard
Years
Catholics
Life
Fill

More quotes by 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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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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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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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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The highest love of all finds its fulfillment not in what it keeps, but in what it gives.
Andrew Greeley
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Nobody puts constraints on God. She doesn't like it.
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
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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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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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I think the only kind of acceptable evangelization is the evangelization of good example.
Andrew Greeley
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We're given second chances every day of our life. We don't usually take them, but they're there for the taking.
Andrew Greeley
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Angels are wonderful and exciting, and they have the appeal of beings who will take care of us and manifest God's personal concern.
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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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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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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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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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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Is the patience of the American people that long suffering? Is there no outrage left in the country?
Andrew Greeley
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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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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