My brothers, the United States Bishops, have reminded us, all are called to be vigilant, precisely as good citizens, to preserve and defend that freedom from everything that would threaten or compromise it.

We have created new idols. The worship of the ancient golden calf (cf. Ex 32:1-35) has returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money and the dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly human purpose. The worldwide crisis affecting finance and the economy lays bare their imbalances and, above all, their lack of real concern for human beings; man is reduced to one of his needs alone: consumption.

To be saints is not a privilege for a few, but a vocation for everyone.

You have a specific and important mission, that of keeping alive the relationship between the faith and the cultures of the peoples to whom you belong. . . . [W]e have to follow Christ along the concrete path of our daily lives so that he can transform us.

Our Christian witness is authentic when it is faithful and unconditional.

A Christian who does not protect Creation, who does not let it grow, is a Christian who does not care about the work of God, that work that was born from the love of God for us. And this is the first response to the first creation: protect creation, make it grow.

I had the habit of not accepting prizes or honors, but always, not out of humility, but because I don't like them.