The Church is called to draw near to every person, beginning with the poorest and those who suffer.

None of us can think we are exempt from concerns for the poor and for social justice.

The Book of Genesis tells us that God created man and woman entrusting them with the task of filling the earth and subduing it, which does not mean exploiting it but nurturing and protecting it, caring for it through their work.

One cannot provoke, one cannot insult other people's faith, one cannot make fun of faith.

The one thing that the Catholic Church desires, and that I seek as Bishop of Rome, “the Church which presides in charity”, is communion with the Orthodox Churches.

The Lord put it clearly: you cannot serve two masters. You have to choose between God and money.

Almost without being aware of it, we end up being incapable of feeling compassion at the outcry of the poor, weeping for other people's pain, and feeling a need to help them, as though all this were someone else's responsibility and not our own.