Claudio Hummes Quotes

No, we are not the master of the state, said King. We are not the servant of the state. We are the conscience of the state. The churches or the religious community should be, I think, the conscience of the state. We're not just service providers.

Government has crowded out the role of many social institutions, including the Church, that have been a great force for good in public life.

Christians who have influence in political life must feel as individuals responsibility in front of their own faith. And the duty of encouraging laws that are not in contradiction with the Commandments comes within the mission of the Church.

The church is not a political power; it's not a party, but it's a moral power.

Standards of conduct appropriate to civil society or the workings of a democracy cannot be purely and simply applied to the Church.

The state can be a force for good. The Rule of law is absolutely essential to a good life. God has instituted government and leaders throughout history and throughout the Biblical narrative. However, the state is growing precisely as the church is fading as a force for good, and this does not seem to be a good trend.

Martin Luther King Jr. really understood the role of the churches when he said, 'The church is not meant to be the master of the state.' We don't sort of take power and grab the levers of government and impose our agenda down people's throats.

The fact that we see some people doing what appears to be good civic-minded deeds may be because that is their true intention, and it may be that that is their best way to hold onto power in a setting where they have to depend on a lot of people.

In Plains, I saw Jimmy Carter as he really is - a nice, decent man... in terms of compassionate contribution to society, he certainly has proven to be our best past president.

Distance does not decide who is your brother and who is not. The church is going to have to become the conscience of the free market if it's to have any meaning in this world - and stop being its apologist.

Since politics fundamentally should be a moral enterprise, the church in this sense has something to say about politics.

Civics is not only how to run the country before it's your turn to run the country; it is, in fact, the study of power, practical political power. And you must start that process at an age level when kids' brains are still open and malleable.

Religious power, which, as I have already said, frequently identifies itself with political power, has always been a protagonist of this bitter struggle, even when it seemingly was neutral.

Our Nation is in great need of young men and women of character to lead in every arena of our society.

I don't know who will lead us through the '90s, but they must be made to speak to this spiritual vacuum at the heart of American society, this tumor of the soul.

In all of history the only balance to private power has been public power.

It is not for the pastors of the Church to intervene directly in the political construction and organization of social life.

The duty of the church is to march to the ballot box, an army of Christ, with the banners of the cross, and deposit, as she can, a million votes for her true representative …

… the Church, whose natural interests allied it more to the great than to the meek …

The Church must actualize, be present in the public debate, in our struggle for a true concept of liberty and peace.

The Catholic Church is an enormous footprint in Chicago, doing a lot of good. That aspiration is felt by a lot of people - that the church succeed - because it will be good for society.

The instinct to command others, in its primitive essence, is a carnivorous, altogether bestial and savage instinct. Under the influence of the mental development of man, it takes on a somewhat more ideal form and becomes somewhat ennobled, presenting itself as the instrument of reason and the devoted servant of that abstraction, or political fiction, which is called the public good

Secularization is the process by which certain responsibilities pass from ecclesiastical to political authorities.

How many people who have run for President did not believe that God wanted them to be President?

No true and perfect human society can be conceived which is not governed by some supreme authority…. Do the sheep when they are all assembled together rule and guide the shepherd?