'I may think it modesty when I draw back from declaring myself chief of sinners, but I think it more likely a failure of imagination. For what sinner should I speak if not for myself? Of all the billions of people who have lived and of all the thousands who I have known, whom should I say is the chief of sinners? Surely I am authorized, surely I am competent to speak only for myself? When in the presence of God the subject of sin is raised, how can I help but say that chiefly it is I? Not to confess that I am chiefly the one is not to confess at all.'
Richard John Neuhaus, Death on a Friday Afternoon, p.8.
