In the Vatican, if you don't get something new done quickly you may not get it done at all.

The impact remains to be seen; I don't think we can measure the enduring impact of John Paul II, for example, for another hundred, perhaps two hundred, years.

The Church offers the medicine of the divine mercy so that healed souls can grasp the truth that will liberate them in the fullest meaning of human freedom.

The world needs a pastor, whether it knows it or not.

[When the Gospel seems to be interpreted in different ways] is the obvious challenge, perhaps even danger, here. By its very nature as a custodial office, the papacy can't be a Rorschach test, into which people read whatever they like - whatever they fear or hope for.

The Church in the United States turned a corner about three decades ago, and the idea that we're going back to the incoherence of the late Sixties and Seventies is, frankly, silly. Let's have a little faith in what the Holy Spirit has done among us these past 35 years.

Then [Catholics] owe [pope] the loyalty that is expressed in speaking the truth to him - and that puts a premium on knowing whether what you're happy about, on unhappy about, has a basis in fact, or is merely a reflection of the "narrative.