Archbishop Chaput

from his April 8 keynote address for the University of Notre Dame Right to Life Club's spring lecture series:

"There is no such thing as morally neutral legislation or morally neutral public policy.  Every law is the public expression of what somebody thinks we ought to do. The question that matters is this: Which moral convictions of which somebodies are going to shape our country's political and cultural future?"

The answer is obvious. If you and I as citizens don't do the shaping, then somebody else will. That is the nature of a democracy. A healthy democracy depends upon people of conviction working hard to advance their ideas in the public square respectfully and peacefully, but vigorously and without apologies."

"Most people root their moral convictions in their religious beliefs, for what people believe about God shapes what they think about the nature of the human person and our idea of a just society. And if a citizen fails to bring his moral beliefs into our country's political conversation and work for them publicly and energetically, he said, the defeat of his own beliefs will be ensured."

"We act on what we really believe."  If we don't act on our beliefs, then we don't really believe them."

"If we don't remain true in our public actions to what we claim to believe in our personal lives, then we only deceive ourselves, because God certainly isn't fooled: He sees who and what we are. God sees that our duplicity is really a kind of cowardice, and our lack of courage does a lot more damage than simply wounding our own integrity; it also saps the courage of other good people who really do try to publicly witness what they believe. And that compounds the sin of dishonesty and the sin of injustice."