I kiss the soil as if I placed a kiss on the hands of a mother, for the homeland is our earthly mother. I consider it my duty to be with my compatriots in this sublime and difficult moment.

The distinctive mark of the Christian, today more than ever, must be love for the poor, the weak, the suffering.

A society will be judged on the basis of how it treats its weakest members; and among the most vulnerable are surely the unborn and the dying.

Humanity, its dignity and its balance, will depend at every moment and on every place on the globe,on who man is for woman and who woman is for man.

Side by side with the miseries of underdevelopment...we find ourselves up against a form of superdevelopment, equally inadmissable. This superdevelopment consists in an excessive availability of material goods for the benefit of certain social groups and makes people slaves of "possession" and immediate gratification, with no other horizon than the multiplication or continual replacement of the things already owned with others still better. This is the civilization of consumption, or "consumerism," which involves so much throwing away and waste.

The new evangelization calls for followers of Christ who are unconditionally pro-life who will proclaim, celebrate, and serve the Gospel of life in every situation. A sign of hope is the increasing recognition that the dignity of human life must never be taken away, even in the case of someone who has done great evil. I renew the appeal I made ... for a consensus to end the death penalty, which is both cruel and unnecessary.

Condemning class struggle does not mean condemning every possible form of social conflict. Such conflicts inevitably arise and Christians must often take a position in the "struggle for social justice." What is condemned is "total war," which has no respect for the dignity of others (and consequently of oneself). It excludes reasonable compromise, does not pursue the common good but the good of a group, and sets out to destroy whatever stands in its way.