The worship of the golden calf of old (cf. Ex 32:15-34) has found a new and heartless image in the cult of money and the dictatorship of an economy which is faceless and lacking any truly humane goal.

From the way children are treated society can be judged.

Dear young people, Christ asks you to be wide awake and alert, to see the things in life that really matter.

Children are victims of a social problem that wounds the family.

I entrust this Twenty-second World Day of the Sick to the intercession of Mary. I ask her to help the sick to bear their sufferings in fellowship with Jesus Christ and to support all those who care for them. To all the ill, and to all the health-care workers and volunteers who assist them, I cordially impart my Apostolic Blessing.

[Abortion] is an evil in and of itself, but it is not a religious evil in the beginning, no, it's a human evil. Then obviously, as with every human evil, each killing is condemned.

This is ideological colonization. They colonize people with ideas that try to change mentalities or structures, but this is not new. This was done by the dictatorships of the last century.