If we start without confidence, we have already lost half the battle and we bury our talents.

A delicate balance is required to combat violence perpetrated in the name of a religion, an ideology or an economic system, while also safeguarding religious freedom, intellectual freedom and individual freedoms. But there is another temptation which we must especially guard against: the simplistic reductionism which sees only good or evil; or, if you will, the righteous and sinners.

Let us always pray for one another.

I will be praying with my best wishes that the Orthodox move ahead because they are brothers and their bishops are bishops like us.

We now live in a culture of the temporary, in which more and more people are simply giving up on marriage as a public commitment.

When it comes to the care of our common home, we are living at a critical moment of history.

When I confess a couple who have kids, a married couple, I ask, 'how many children do you have?' Some get worried and think the priest will ask why I don't have more. I would make a second question, 'Do you play with your children?' The majority say, 'but father, I have no time. I work all day.'