“If someone tells you, ‘Go home, you’re not needed,’ that’s not true. No one is useless in the Church. We are all needed to build this temple.”
— Pope Francis, speaking to an estimated 50,000 people at his weekly general audience June 26

“The court got it wrong. The federal government ought to respect the truth that marriage is the union of one man and one woman, even where states fail to do so. The preservation of liberty and justice requires that all laws, federal and state, respect the truth, including the truth about marriage.”
— Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco, chair of the U.S. bishops’ Subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage, in a statement following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling June 26 striking down the federal Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, defining marriage as between one man and one woman

“The church does not have two wings: a ‘faith and worship’ division on one hand, and a ‘service’ division on the other. What we believe and how we worship give rise to a life of service.”
— Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore, in his June 21 homily at a Mass opening the second Fortnight for Freedom at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Baltimore

“In some ways rock ’n roll was the soundtrack to the sexual revolution. So, if there is going to be another revolution inspired by theology of the body, inspired by the past four popes in calling for this re-evangelization of the church and then subsequently culture, we are going to need a soundtrack for it.”
— Popular Catholic musician and songwriter Matt Maher, in an interview with Catholic News Service before a June 24 concert in Fulton, Md.