Preservation of the environment, promotion of sustainable development and particular attention to climate change are matters of grave concern for the entire human family.

Love looks to the eternal. Love is indeed "ecstasy," not in the sense of a moment of intoxication, but rather as a journey, an on-going exodus out of the closed inward-looking self toward its liberation through self-giving... toward authentic self-discovery and indeed the discovery of God.

What is capable of restoring enthusiasm and confidence, what can encourage the human spirit to rediscover its path, to raise its eyes to the horizon, to dream of a life worthy of its vocation - if not beauty?

A theologian who does not love art, poetry, music and nature can be dangerous. Blindness and deafness toward the beautiful are not incidental; they necessarily are reflected in his theology.

Love is the very process of passing over, of transformation, of stepping outside the limitations of fallen humanity - in which we are all separated from one another and ultimately impenetrable to one another - into an infinite otherness.

The language of art is a 'parabolic' language, with a special openness to the universal: the 'Way of Beauty' is a way capable of leading the mind and heart to the Lord, to elevate them to the heights of God.

Grant that we may be one flock and one shepherd.