[Jesus Christ to Pope Francis] is the Lord with whom he speaks for hours every day in prayer. The Risen One who reached out, touched his life, and called him into mission.

I hope ["reanimated the papacy"] means that the new interest in the pope evokes a new interest in the Church's teaching, of which the pope is the custodian.

The people who are behind the curve of the Catholic future are the institutional-maintenance types.

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.

[Pope Francis]sees a world in need of the Gospel, and of friendship with Jesus Christ, as an antidote to the self-absorption and loneliness that are eating away at the solidarity of the human community.

"You don't believe what you read in the papers about anything else; why do you believe it about the pope?" That's where I'd start.

Younger theologians will continue to pursue and understand truth rather than deconstructing it, as a lot of their elders seemed to want to do.