No act of virtue can be great if it is not followed by advantage for others. So, no matter how much time you spend fasting, no matter how much you sleep on a hard floor and eat ashes and sigh continually, if you do no good to others, you do nothing great.

Be men and women with others and for others: true champions at the service of others.

The culture of prosperity deadens us; we are thrilled if the market offers us something new to purchase; and in the meantime all those lives stunted for lack of opportunity seem a mere spectacle; they fail to move us.

You cannot be in a position of power and destroy the life of another person.

One cannot offend, make war, kill in the name of one's own religion, that is, in the name of God.

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.

We cannot be part-time Christians! We should seek to live our faith at every moment of every day.