The modern world, a world which has experienced marvelous achievements but which seems to have lost its sense of ultimate realities and of existence itself.

Friendship, as has been said, consists in a full commitment of the will to another person with a view to that person's good.

Mary is the sure path to our meeting with Christ. Devotion to the Mother of the Lord, when it is genuine, is always an impetus to a life guided by the spirit and values of the Gospel.

If humanity today succeeds in combining the new scientific capacities with a strong ethical dimension, it will certainly be able to promote the environment as a home and a resource for...all...and will be able to eliminate the causes of pollution and to guarantee adequate conditions of hygiene and health for small groups as well as for vast human settlements.

The saints have always been the source and origin of renewal in the most difficult moments in the Church's history.

Economic activity, especially the activity of a market economy, cannot be conducted in an institutional, juridical or political vacuum. On the contrary, it presupposes sure guarantees of individual freedom and private property, as well as a stable currency and efficient public services.

The Eucharist is not only a particularly intense expression of the reality of the Church's life, but also in a sense its fountainhead. The Eucharist feeds and forms the Church: 'Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread' (1 Cor 10:17, RSV). Because of this vital link with the sacrament of the Body and Blood of the Lord, the mystery of the Church is savored, proclaimed, and lived supremely in the Eucharist.