“Our lives will never be the same. But neither will we have to face a single day without the strength and peace that only Christ can give to us. In that strength and in that peace, I am very much united with you today.”
— Baltimore Archbishop William Lori, the bishop of Bridgeport, Conn., from 2001 until he was named to Baltimore in March, in a letter read at all of the Sunday Masses Dec. 16 at St. Rose of Lima in Newtown, Conn.

“Anyone who loves peace cannot tolerate attacks and crimes against life.”
— Pope Benedict XVI, in his annual message for the World Day of Peace Jan. 1

“Governments might be able to live with this agreement, but people, the world’s poorest in particular, and the planet cannot.”
— Emilie Johann of the international alliance of Catholic development agencies known as CIDSE, on the lack of new, major action on climate change at U.N. talks in Doha, Qatar, beyond a Dec. 8 agreement to extend the Kyoto Protocol curbing greenhouse gas emissions