We must avoid the spiritual disease of the Church that can become self-referential: when this happens, the Church itself becomes sick. It’s true that accidents can happen when you go out into the street, as can happen to any man or woman. But if the Church remains closed onto itself, self-referential, it grows old. Between a Church that goes into the street and gets into an accident and a Church that is sick with self-referentiality, I have no doubts in preferring the first.

When we do not profess Jesus Christ, we profess the worldliness of the devil, a demonic worldliness.

In the Gospel we have just heard, Jesus, the Master, teaches the crowds and the small group of his disciples by accommodating himself to their ability to understand. ... Jesus does not seek to 'play the professor.' Instead, he seeks to reach people's hearts, their understanding and their lives, so that they may bear fruit.

Christianity spreads through the joy of disciples who know that they are loved and saved.

Laboratories are useful, but reflection for us must always start from experience.

Fathers are so necessary as examples and guides for our children in wisdom and virtue. Without father figures, young people often feel orphaned; left adrift at a critical moment in their growth and development.

We, the women and men of the Church, we are in the middle of a love story: each of us is a link in this chain of love. And if we do not understand this, we have understood nothing of what the Church is.