I too hope in this short reign to be a man of peace.

Holiness does not consist in not making mistakes or never sinning. Holiness grows with capacity for conversion, repentance, willingness to begin again, and above all with the capacity for reconciliation and forgiveness.

The one and only Gospel waits to be proclaimed by everyone together, in love and reciprocal esteem.

How much we need, in the church and in society, witnesses of the beauty of holiness, witnesses of the splendour of truth, witnesses of the joy and freedom born of a living relationship with Christ!

God seeks us where we are, not so that we stay there, but so that we may come to be where He is, so that we may get beyond ourselves.

Too often [the Church] is weighted down and burdened with the sins and failings of her children; too often she appears disfigured and discouraged.

The fields are still ripe for harvesting (cf. Jn 4:35); God continues to give the growth (cf. 1 Cor 3:6). We can and must believe, with the late Pope John Paul II, that God is preparing a new springtime for Christianity (cf. Redemptoris Missio, 86). What is needed above all, at this time in the history of the Church in America, is a renewal of that apostolic zeal which inspires her shepherds actively to seek out the lost, to bind up those who have been wounded, and to bring strength to those who are languishing (cf. Ez 34:16).