Quotable & notable

"I propose to make this meeting of Peter among us for the church in America a new usefulness, a new spring and a new Pentecost."

--Vatican ambassador Archbishop Pietro Sambi announcing that Pope Benedict XVI will visit the U.S. April 15-20. The trip will "revive the urgency" of the Catholic mission in America, Sambi said.

"I don't preempt a wedding or a funeral for a presidential candidate. Because I'm a pastor. "

--Leith Anderson, president of the National Association of Evangelicals and pastor in Eden Prairie, Minn., explaining that he passed on a meeting with an unnamed presidential candidate because he had an appointment at his church

"After a generation that was not interested in religion, we now have a generation ignorant about it."

--Cardinal-designate Andre Vingt-Trois of Paris, who was elected president of the French bishops' conference Nov. 5. He said France no longer has "any Christian memory."

"Children are sponges, and if my children are taught by [a Muslim], they'll start asking themselves who they are."

--Genevieve April of Laval, Canada, speaking before Quebec's reasonable accommodations commission, which collected testimony on--among other things--whether public school teachers can wear hijabs at work

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