By Dietrich Bonhoeffer

From Ethics

The Church confesses her timidity, her evasiveness, her dangerous concessions. She has often been untrue to her office of guardianship and to her office of comfort. And through this she has often denied to the outcast and to the despised the compassion which she owes them. She was silent when she should have cried out because the blood of the innocent was crying aloud to heaven.

She has failed to speak the right word in the right way and at the right time. The Church confesses that she has witnessed in silence the spoilation and exploitation of the poor and the enrichment and corruption of the strong.

 The Church confesses that she has desired security, peace and quiet, possessions and honor, to which she had no right, and in this way she has not bridled the desires of humanity but has stimulated them still further.

By her silence she has rendered herself guilty of the decline in responsible action, in bravery in the defense of a cause, and in willingness to suffer for what is known to be right.