If you must be in a hurry, then let it be according to the old adage, and hasten slowly.

If you think something should be done, take the trouble to write to me about it, and together we will decide the time and manner of doing it.

Use gentle methods to get whatever good you can from priests and monks who are slaves, as well as from merchants and captives. Resort to severe measures only in extreme cases, for fear lest the hardship they are already enduring in their state of captivity, joined to the strictness you might want to exercise in virtue of your authority, drive them to despair. . . . It is not light they need, but strength, and strength permeates through the external balm of words and good example.

... I am sure that you are the first to do what you teach them.

[L]et us believe that all is going along the best in the world when we take no satisfaction in it, provided we humble ourselves for this and redouble our confidence in God.

[T]hese losses of the Church in the past hundred years give us reason to fear in the present misfortune that in another hundred years we may lose the Church entirely in Europe. So, keeping this fear in mind, blessed are those who cooperate in extending the Church elsewhere.

If after so much effort and prayer, the matter is not successful, it will be a clear sign that God does not will it.