Christ leads us to go out from ourselves more and more, to give ourselves and to serve others.

In this Year of Faith, we pray to the Lord that the Church may always be a true family that brings God’s love to everyone.

There is no worse material poverty than one that does not allow for earning one’s bread and deprives one of the dignity of work. Youth unemployment, informality, and the lack of labor rights are not inevitable; they are the result of a previous social option, of an economic system that puts profit above man; if the profit is economic, to put it above humanity or above man, is the effect of a disposable culture that considers the human being in himself as a consumer good, which can be used and then discarded.

Women have much to tell us. Women are capable of seeing things in a different angle. Women can pose questions that we men cannot understand.

Like Mary, may we nurture the light born within us at Christmas. May we carry it everywhere in our daily lives.

Peacemaking calls for courage, much more so than warfare.

We have to work harder to develop a profound theology of women within the church. The feminine genius is needed wherever we make important decisions.