I would say the synodal church is like the word itself. It is 'a going on the way together,' and it is a way - whenever people walk, there are people who have been that way before who know that others have been that way before, and so they try to give direction.

The church can challenge society, but society also challenges the church. That's good. We should be humble enough to be able to accept that.

My folks were very practical. They were also kind of able to think outside of the box. They were not going to let circumstance paralyze them. They knew sometimes you just had to take some new initiative. I think they passed that on to all of us... If you don't find a way, you make one.

The Catholic Church is an enormous footprint in Chicago, doing a lot of good. That aspiration is felt by a lot of people - that the church succeed - because it will be good for society.

There is a synergy between the way Croatians approach life and the way Jesuits do. Croatians are very real about situations. We don't gloss over things. If there are issues to deal with, you deal with them.

I don't think sometimes people in positions of leadership in the church really engage gay and lesbian people and talk to them and get to know about their lives.

We're all different; we all have our ways of understanding ourselves and the way we live our lives and struggle with our humanity.

Getting to know people as they are is very, very important.

Once a bishop is appointed, in terms of governance, we are semi-autonomous. It's not like we are branch managers of a bank or something.

Every school that I have ever attended, except for kindergarten, I went to a Catholic institution.

I commend the parents who are sending their children to a Catholic school, because they're making a sacrifice, and they're paying twice for their child's education: They're paying the tuition, and they're paying taxes.

Radical individualism can be very sad.

We realize there is no political party or politician who fully takes into consideration the issues the church is about. This is nothing new to us.

It's important for people to give every leader the chance to step forward and look for ways to have dialogue.

We are a democracy, and we get the leaders we deserve because we elect them.

We have to become involved in the political process - if we don't like it, we can change it.

Chicago is highly segregated, a fact that both causes and compounds the problems we face in bringing an end to violence.

There is a temptation to have shortcuts and not put in the time and the effort. I think you have to be willing to talk to people and sit sometimes around a table and listen to other people.

Listen, talk, be respectful of people - and make sure that you have openness to where people are coming from. And you don't do anything that is unnecessarily antagonistic, that is only going to make you feel good because you've done it.

I think that education is a pathway out of poverty for many people. It was for our family.

I am never bored in my ministry because I continually see the impact of God in people's lives.

We don't need more divisive language or programs and policies that are going to tear the fabric of the nation apart.

The Eucharist is an opportunity of grace and conversion. It's also a time of forgiveness of sins, so my hope would be that grace would be instrumental in bringing people to the truth.

Realities are greater than ideas. Because sometimes ideas can separate us unnecessarily. So let's attend to the realities that we have to deal with on a day-to-day basis. That's what I want to do.

I don't want the abnormal or something special. I want to have a normal life.

I take time to be with people, and I learn a lot.

For me, the real goal is how do we make vibrant and vital faith communities that are sustainable for the long run.

People are looking for a way in which their spiritual life can be deepened. They are finding it in some of our Catholic parishes and sometimes not in others, and that opens the door for them to go elsewhere.

I want to be a partner with business, labor, civic leaders, foundations, other churches so that we can work together... If I can talk to all of these people and have something in common, maybe I can get them to see that they also have something in common with each other when we come together.

We don't need military weapons in our society. We're not supposed to be at war with one another.

Once we begin to make our churches safety zones in a military-style approach, we're going to lose something of the character of our places of worship.

We want to let people know that we can build solidarity with suffering folks so that they are not excluded, they are integrated.

'Dialogue' is not a dirty word; it's our word.

We're not a Church of preservation but rather a Church of proclamation. To achieve this end, we must be open to significant, if not revolutionary, changes in how the Archdiocese with its parishes and ministries is organized, how it's resourced, how it's staffed.

The Church is not fully Church if it lacks dialogue.

I try and write satire that's well-intentioned. But those intentions have to be hidden. It can't be completely clear, and that's what makes it comedy.

Once a week, I like to slip into a deep existential depression where I lose all my sense of oneness and self-worth.

In high school, I worked eight hours a day just so I could get into the college of my dreams and say that I got in - and I never went.

I have a pretty good math mind, so I can see patterns, but I don't have a great ear. It's like a tragedy - I can see so much more natural musical ability in so many other people.

I think the love-hate is fundamental. Everyone hates reality television, and everyone's watching it. Everyone hates Facebook, and everyone is on it.

I've always liked the format of YouTube, sharing things for free, which is a nice exchange between people.

When I see someone filming me, I don't usually think, 'No, man, don't put this up online!' I'd think, 'Hey man, you don't get to go to shows very often, put down the camera and enjoy it!' I love going to theatre and to shows so much.

I've found nothing but support and generosity from older comics. I think comedians are a lot nicer than the stigma is, at least from my experience.

Comedy should be a source of positivity. I don't want to bully people, and I don't want people to come to my show to feel terrible about something. So I'm actually very open to having a conversation about what I should or shouldn't say.

At the time of 'Words, Words, Words,' I'm a 19-year-old getting up feeling like he's entitled to do comedy and tell you what he thinks of the world, so that's inherently a little bit ridiculous.

'Words, Words, Words' was very much its title. It's just words, words, words and trying to show that I can pack as much material into an hour as I possibly could word count-wise.

For me, comedy is constantly presented as this fake casualness, like a guy just walked on stage going, 'This crazy thing happened to me the other day.' And he's in front of 3000 people, and he's acting like an everyman, and he's getting paid so much money.

At once I feel that comedy is this amazing sort of transcendent thing, and I'm also open to the fact that maybe it's just an evolutionary hiccup, something that upright apes do in their free time.

The strange thing was, when I was starting on YouTube, even the paradigm of YouTube and Internet sensation - or whatever - that didn't really exist. So I didn't even know that that was a thing.

I think the comedy clubs tend to homogenize the acts a little bit, because they force them to be palatable in way too many environments.