Our situation today shows that beauty demands for itself at least as much courage and decision as do truth and goodness, and she will not allow herself to be separated and banned from her two sisters without taking them along with herself in an act of mysterious vengeance.

Hell is to be contemplated strictly as a matter which concerns me alone. As part of the spiritual life it belongs behind the 'closed door' of my own room. From the standpoint of living faith, I cannot fundamentally believe in anyone's damnation but my own; as far as my neighbor is concerned, the light of resurrection can never be so obscured that I would be allowed or obliged to stop hoping for him.

We are not only interested in those aspects of the mystery of the Roman Catholic Church which set her apart from the other Christian communities, but also to show how often they are central beliefs by describing what is specifically Catholic in such a way that the partner in dialogue can see, even from his own standpoint, the inner consistency.

There will never be beings unloved by God, since God is absolute love.

Her (Mary's) Son first had to be the Child of the Father in order then to become man and be capable of taking up on his shoulders the burden of a guilty world.

The greatest tragedy in the history of Christianity was neither the Crusades nor the Reformation nor the Inquisition, but rather the split that opened up between theology and spirituality at the end of the Middle Ages.

It is to the Cross that the Christian is challenged to follow his Master: no path of redemption can make a detour around it.