The mystery of poverty is that by sharing in it, making ourselves poor in giving to others, we increase our knowledge of and belief in love.

The sense is always that community is natural to people.

Everything a baptized person does each day should be directly or indirectly related to the corporal and spiritual works of mercy.

The biggest mistake sometimes is to play things very safe in this life and end up being moral failures.

The theoretician of the Marxist revolution in Cuba certainly wasn't Castro. It was Don Carlos Rafaelo Rodriguez. He was the theoretician and very often people say he will take over. But I don't believe it. I think that it's a very good combination - the Catholic man working together with a man like that who has everything pretty well planned.

Voluntary poverty isn't going around with some burlap bag around you and imitating the poor. It means being indifferent to the material, doing as Christ said. He went and sat down with the rich and Zachaeus and publicans and sinners.

These powerless people at the bottom are the ones with whom we must begin. They must have the insight and the knowledge to work together and recognise that they are on the right track.