William P. Leahy quotes:

One of the biggest issues that we face is that we have people who have their own particular concerns, whether it's on abortion, birth control, divorce and remarriage, civil rights or social justice.

Others don't want to listen to viewpoints that members of the church have.

What we're about is a manifestation of the Catholic roots of Boston College.

You know how the church has been hit so hard by the sexual misconduct by clergy, and what's that's done to Catholics, especially here in Boston but elsewhere as well.

I would say the hierarchy has made terrible errors in judgment and it has to seek forgiveness by its members.

BC is not going to replace the hierarchy, and BC is not going to lead some major reform in the Catholic Church - that's got to come out of the whole Catholic community.

This is a crisis, but there is an opportunity to help revitalize and renew the Catholic community.

The more we can get together and talk about various perspectives, feelings, beliefs, the better.

Individuals will speak their minds, which I think is healthy.

The church may hold whatever it holds with regard to clerical celibacy.

Now where people are - at least the people I talk to - they are focused on issues of trust. Accountability also comes up, to make sure that this doesn't happen again.

I think the issue of clergy sexual abuse sparked people to look at their faith in a different way.

The Spirit hasn't deserted the church today.

What I think we can do is help individuals understand the church teaching, but also maybe help the church understand the viewpoint of lay men and women about what they want in regard to priests, or how do they want the hierarchy to deal with them?

Some of the speakers we bring on campus may not reflect official church teaching, but that's how it is.

Clearly there are individuals who don't understand what the church teaches, or they think it's so limiting.

I am very confident that the Spirit is with us.

We've always had issues up for discussion at Catholic universities.

The hierarchy shouldn't fear what we're doing.

We are the meeting place, an entity that's trying to connect faith and culture.

No organization, whether it's police or physicians or whatever, wants to have its errors held up to the light of day, but it's wrong, as is coming out so well.

The challenge for the church is how do we have unity about basic beliefs and yet respect individual differences.