Commending the victims to almighty God's mercy, I implore his strength upon all involved in rescue efforts and in caring for the survivors.

In the depths of the human soul... the desire to give meaning to one's own life is joined by the fleeting vision of beauty and of the mysterious unity of things.

If the aim is globalization without marginalization, we can no longer tolerate a world in which there live side by side the immensely rich and the miserably poor, the have-nots deprived even of essentials and people who thoughtlessly waste what others so desperately need. Such countries are an affront to the dignity of the human person. He further said, Ethics demand that systems be attuned to the needs of man, and not that man be sacrificed for the sake of the system.

The Gospel lives in conversation with culture, and if the Church holds back from the culture, the Gospel itself falls silent. Therefore, we must be fearless in crossing the threshold of the communication and information revolution now taking place.

The goal and target of our life is He, the Christ who awaits us -- each one singly and altogether -- to lead us across the boundaries of time to the eternal embrace of the God who loves us.

The Church must persist in the teaching transmitted to her by Christ.

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.