It would be nice if you as journalists - there are some books that explain the painting [ of Guadalupe] what it is like, the significance, and that is how you can understand better this great and beautiful people.

Please pray with me for everyone in Sri Lanka and the Philippines as I begin my trip.

The great challenge facing us today is to learn once again how to talk to one another, not simply how to generate and consume information. The latter is a tendency which our important and influential modern communications media can encourage. Information is important, but it is not enough. All too often things get simplified, different positions and viewpoints are pitted against one another, and people are invited to take sides, rather than to see things as a whole.

The world is polarized. The middle class becomes smaller. The polarization makes the difference between rich and the poor big. This is true.

Once capital becomes an idol and guides people's decisions, once greed for money presides over the entire socioeconomic system, it ruins society, it condemns and enslaves men and women, it destroys human fraternity, it sets people against one another and it even puts at risk our common home.

The climate is a common good, belonging to all and meant for all.

I see clearly that the thing the church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful; it needs nearness, proximity. I see the church as a field hospital after battle... The church sometimes has locked itself up in small things, in small-minded rules. The most important thing is the first proclamation: Jesus Christ has saved you.