When it comes to the care of our common home, we are living at a critical moment of history.

Sometimes we are tempted to find excuses and complain, acting as if we could only be happy if a thousand conditions were met...I can say that the most beautiful and natural expressions of joy which I have seen in my life were in poor people who had little to hold on to.

We cannot be tepid disciples. The Church needs our courage in order to give witness to truth.

Those who today always look for disciplinarian solutions, those who long for an exaggerated doctrinal 'security,' those who stubbornly try to recover a past that no longer exists - they have a static and inward-directed view of things. In this way, faith becomes an ideology among other ideologies.

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 poor is the center of the Gospel. If we take out the poor, we cannot understand the message of Christ

To be a mother is a great treasure. Mothers, in their unconditional and sacrificial love for their children, are the antidote to individualism; they are the greatest enemies against war.