“But the past cannot be changed, and we carry our choices with us, forward, into the unknown. We can only move on.”

“No choice we can make as a nation lies between our history and our geography. We can hardly change either of them. They are immutable. The only choice we can make as a nation is the choice about our future.”

“We are all what our pasts have made us,” Catarina said. “The accumulation of thousands of daily choices. We can change ourselves, but never erase what we’ve been.”

“Our immediate task, however, is the critical work of confronting the economic crisis. As I've said, we've passed through an era of profound irresponsibility; now we cannot afford half-measures, and we cannot go back to the kind of risk-taking that leads to bubbles that inevitably bust. So we have a choice. We can shape our future, or let events shape it for us. And if we want to succeed, we can't fall back on the stale debates and old divides that won't move us forward.”

“We are not animals. We are not a product of what has happened to us in our past. We have the power of choice.”

“We should admit some of the ineffective practices of our past labors. This confrontation needs be embraced by all of us on a personal level, at the local parish and throughout the diocese. There are many ways in which we can do this and now move forward. The mission of Christ is being strengthened.”

“We need to move forward and beyond the point where we endlessly pursue the demons bequeathed us by our history.”

“We cannot change the history of the past.”

“We cannot change the past to rewrite a better beginning - But we can work for the future and strive for a better ending.”

“If history moves forward, knowledge of it travels backwards, so that in writing of our own recent past we are continually meeting ourselves coming the other way.”