The saying of Vatican II is above all, 'Conscience is supreme.'

One of the disconcerting facts about the spiritual life is that God takes you at your word.

There's enough hate in the world. I command you to love. And you have to make an effort.

If you are going to try and change things, you had better have your wits about you.

Poverty is a strange and elusive thing. ... I condemn poverty and I advocate it; poverty is simple and complex at once; it is a social phenomenon and a personal matter. Poverty is an elusive thing, and a paradoxical one. We need always to be thinking and writing about it, for if we are not among its victims its reality fades from us. We must talk about poverty because people insulated by their own comfort lose sight of it.

Some can go further than others.

As we come to know the seriousness of the situation, the war, the racism, the poverty in our world, we come to realize that things will not be changed simply by words or demonstrations. Rather, it's a question of living one's life in a drastically different way.