There is another important point: encountering the poor. If we step outside ourselves we find poverty. Today-it sickens the heart to say so-the discovery of a tramp who has died of the cold is not news. Today what counts as news is, maybe, a scandal. A scandal: ah, that is news! Today, the thought that a great many children do not have food to eat is not news. This is serious, this is serious! We cannot put up with this! Yet that is how things are. We cannot become starched Christians, those over-educated Christians who speak of theological matters as they calmly sip their tea.

Every time we give in to selfishness and say “No” to God, we spoil his loving plan for us.

The measure of the greatness of a society is found in the way it treats those most in need, those who have nothing apart from their poverty!

Today, in Mexico, they speak 65 languages, counting the indigenous languages, 65. It is a people of great faith. They have also suffered religious persecution.

I like this idea of the re-foundation of the European Union, maybe it can be done, because Europe - I do not say is unique, but it has a force, a culture, a history that cannot be wasted, and we must do everything so that the European Union has the strength and also the inspiration to make it go forward.

The Church needs you, your enthusiasm, your creativity and the joy that is so characteristic of you.

It seems that humanity is incapable of putting a halt to the shedding of innocent blood.