Justice & Law Quote by William P. Leahy

Leahy’s sentence is doing the careful, managerial work of naming conflict without sounding like he’s picking sides. The phrase “one of the biggest issues that we face” frames disagreement as an institutional problem to be managed, not a moral argument to be won. That’s educator-speak with real stakes: it signals leadership trying to keep a coalition intact while acknowledging that the coalition is fraying.

The key move is how he describes the people involved: “people who have their own particular concerns.” “Particular” is a softener that quietly reduces convictions to preferences, as if abortion or civil rights are items on a personal checklist rather than public battles with winners and losers. It’s diplomatic, but it also carries a subtext of impatience: the problem isn’t the issues themselves, it’s that individuals won’t subordinate their priorities to the institution’s broader agenda.

Then there’s the list. By placing abortion, birth control, and “divorce and remarriage” next to “civil rights or social justice,” Leahy collapses very different categories into a single bucket of “concerns.” That rhetorical leveling is strategic. It implies symmetry between doctrinal flashpoints and structural inequities, allowing an institution (often a school, diocese, or university setting) to argue for “balance” and “unity” while sidestepping the uneven power dynamics behind these debates.

Contextually, it reads like a leader speaking from inside a faith-linked or values-driven educational environment where internal constituencies pull in different directions: donors, parents, faculty, students, church authorities. The intent is stabilizing. The subtext is triage.