If you don’t learn how to cry, you cannot be a good Christian. When they posed this question to us – why children suffer, why this or that tragedy occurs in life – our response must be either silence or a word that is born of our tears. Be courageous, don’t be afraid to cry.

Through prayer, charity and humility before God, people receive a heart which is firm and merciful, attentive and generous, a heart which is not closed, indifferent or prey to the globalization of indifference.

The great danger in today's world, pervaded as it is by consumerism, is the desolation and anguish born of a complacent yet covetous heart, the feverish pursuit of frivolous pleasures, and a blunted conscience. Whenever our interior life becomes caught up in its own interests and concerns, there is no longer room for others, no place for the poor.

To be friends with God means to pray with simplicity, like children talking to their parents.

I don't know how things stand in the thinking of the Italian parliament. The Pope doesn't get mixed up in Italian politics.

He saw the threat of the family being destroyed by not being open to life or children. Paul VI was brave. He was a good pastor. He alerted his sheep, telling them that the wolves were approaching.

We cannot sleep peacefully while babies are dying of hunger and the elderly are without medical assistance