"Verbatim".

"Wal-Mart does not have greeters at the door because the management is theologically committed to a culture of hospitality. They have them because ... people who feel welcome come back more often and spend more. I'd like to see us do at least as well as Wal-Mart in the hospitality department."

--Kristeen Bruun, a parishioner of Gesu Parish in Milwaukee (America, Sept. 20, 2004)

"It's about whether the woman who cleans your office at night can take her kids to the doctor."

--John Carr of the U.S. bishops' Department of Social Development and World Peace, saying that the election is neither about Bush nor Kerry (Catholic News Service, Oct. 5, 2004)

"For many in Africa and Asia sex is often the only commodity people have to exchange for food, school fees, employment, or survival itself ... The spread of HIV is not always linked to promiscuity."

--Ann Smith of the British Catholic aid agency CAFOD, which called the church's prohibition of condoms in the fight against HIV/AIDS "over-simplistic" (The Guardian, Sept. 24, 2004)

"The Catholic Church assures all of her commitment to eradicate from the world the scourge of hunger and other consequences of poverty."

--Pope John Paul II (Zenit, Sept. 26, 2004)