The mark of our society as civilized will come when we embrace confidence in the power of redemption.

I think that any program that's born from below rather than on high is going to survive.

Does God feel like that same-sex marriage could happen? I don't think anybody who has a connection to God and God's understanding and depth of compassion who's gonna say 'no.'

The margins don't get erased by simply insisting that the powers-that-be erase them.

Redemption is possible, and it is the measure of a civilized society.

Our best selves tell us that 'there but for the grace of God... ' and that, in the end, there is no distance, really, between us and them. It is just us. Our best and noble hope is to imitate the God we believe in. The God who has abundant room in God's grief and heart for us all.

We need the disruption of categories that lead us to abandon the difficult, the disagreeable, and the least likely to go very far.

Gangs are bastions of conditional love, and one of the ways to counteract it is to offer community, which will always trump gang, and that's what happens at Homeboy Industries.

When the vastness of God meets the restriction of our own humanity, words can't hold it. The best we can do is find the moments that rhyme with this expansive heart of God.

Relapse happens, especially when you're dealing with folks who are frankly the least likely to succeed based on their own pasts and difficulties. We can work with the most likely to succeed. I'm not interested in that.

God seems to be an unwilling participant in our efforts to pigeonhole Him.

At its best, an injunction creates a kind of vigilant heat that moves kids toward the light.

I want to be prophetic and take stands and stand with those on the margins, and I want to laugh as much as I can.

I do believe in lessons learned. I have learned that you work with gang members and not with gangs; otherwise, you enforce the cohesion of gangs and supply them oxygen.

I'm not always optimistic, but I am hopeful.

I've never met an evil person ever.

We are less than honest and commit a grave error if we insist that what happened to Rodney G. King was isolated and an exceptional case. The poor know better.

I know now that gang warfare is not the Middle East or Northern Ireland. There is violence in gang violence, but there is no conflict. It is not 'about something.' It is the language of the despondent and traumatized.

Dorothy Day, Cesar Chavez - these are people whose thoughts are so important.

I kinda don't do guilt. I gave it up for Lent years ago.

The arms of God reach to embrace, and somehow you feel yourself just outside God's fingertips.

Metro police can't infuse hope into those for whom hope is foreign. The algorithm does not exist that can heal the traumatized. Data-driven predictions won't result in the delivery of mental health services.

Gangs are born of a lethal absence of hope, and hope has an address: 130 W. Bruno St. in Los Angeles, CA 90012.

The highest hallmark of a civilized society is not the rapidity by which it exacts vengeance, but its ability to hold victim and victimizer in its compassionate heart.

The task of dealing comprehensively with gangs belongs to the city, not to law enforcement.

Young people can change and grow. Every parent knows that.

I'm the priest who has been mistaken for an ATM machine.

Children find themselves adrift not because the informational signposts are illegible, but because there is no one around to guide and accompany them.

Most citizens viewing the tape of Rodney G. King being beaten by police officers were stunned and uncomprehending. Most citizens, that is, but the urban poor.

As a society, we come up lacking in many of the marks of compassion and wisdom by which we measure ourselves as civilized.

I think not everything that works helps, and not everything that helps works.

Jesus did not only serve the needs of the people, but truly hoped that the people and Jesus would be one.

The power of community policing is in the relationship. This can happen only if an officer sticks around for a while.

We can't just settle for the low bar of pope as media-savvy, canny Curia manager.

I don't save people. God saves people. I can point them in the right direction. I can say, 'There's that door. I think if you walked through it, you'd be happier than you are.'

Ours is a God who waits. So who are we not to?

So complex are all the ingredients that cause gang membership that it seems virtually impossible to isolate one solution that can address them all and thereby manufacture a hope for the future upon which these kids can rely.

I would hope that government officials have a healthy respect for the complexity of the gang problem. They should never lose sight of the fact that there are human beings involved. There is no single solution.

People have started to see that 'smart on crime' rather than 'tough on crime' makes sense.

We need a pope to usher in a new era of inclusion, the end of a sinful clericalism, and a strong sense of duty to those on society's margins. The 1 billion faithful long for a leader who is fearless and driven - not by terror but by love.

We need not wait for further, well-placed home video cameras to see that low-intensity warfare is being waged against low-income minorities. We need only listen to the voices of the poor; they can testify that they are dehumanized, disparaged, and despised by the police.

The draconian spirit that seeks to enhance penalties and to lower the age at which juveniles will be tries as adults, is part of the 'whole cloth' of three strikes. Our failure to address the depair of our inner-city youth is only delayed by our over-confidence in a stance that is 'tougher than thou.'

You don't really get Jesus saying very often there'll be pie in the sky when you die. He's really talking about now and today, and it's supposed to be like that. You're supposed to delight in what's right in front of you.

All politics are local, and so in church.

We are among the handful of countries that has difficulty distinguishing juveniles from adults where crime is concerned. We are convinced that if a child commits an adult crime, that kid is magically transformed into an adult. Consequently, we try juveniles as adults.

We lose our right to be surprised that California has the highest recidivism rate in the country if we refuse to hire folks who have taken responsibility for their crimes and have done their time.

You prevent kids from joining gangs by offering after-school programs, sports, mentoring, and positive engagement with adults. You intervene with gang members by offering alternatives and employment to help redirect their lives. You deal with areas of high gang crime activity with real community policing. We know what works.

I'm not opposed to success.

Homeboy Bakery is an alternative to kids who have found themselves, regrettably, in gangs and want to redirect their lives.

The Church should say, 'I'm frightened that women will be ordained;' that's honest, say that. But don't say, 'It's a grave sin,' because that's nonsense.