MONSIGNOR PADDY O’DEA (Then Administrator of the Diocese) –
“When we get priests and people together, then we have awakened the greatest sleeping giant in the world.”

MONSIGNOR JIM O’KEEFE (Then Rector Of Ushaw College) –
“Bernadette Accuru, a black African woman theologian, in the synod for Africa said that, ‘The tragedy of our land is that the blood of the tribe is thicker than the waters of baptism’. I suspect that is true for us too. Perhaps part of the tragedy of our land is that the blood of the tribe, and that tribe may well be the parish we belong to, is thicker than the waters of baptism which is the universal community that we are all called to”.

MONSIGNOR TONY PHILPOTT (Spiritual Director. Palazzolo, Rome) –
“I believe that the way ahead, the only way, lies through our making ourselves what we ought to be. When our sons and daughters, our grandsons and granddaughters, can look at the Catholic Church and say ‘That is a community of reasonable and sensible people, who actually believe in this person called Jesus Christ, and his resurrection. That is a community which is not obsessed with itself, but which puts itself at the service of humanity. That is a community in which the people pull together. That is a community, which has fire in its belly about justice. It doesn't mind rattling the bars of people's cages. That is a community, which clearly possesses a treasure, a hidden treasure, which makes its members happy’. When our children and grandchildren can look at us and say that about us, they will also want to say ‘And that is a community I wish to belong to’."