Grant that we may be one flock and one shepherd! Do not allow your net to be torn, help us to be servants of unity!

In the Eucharist a communion takes place that corresponds to the union of man and woman in marriage. Just as they become 'one flesh', so in Communion we all become 'one spirit', one person, with Christ.

Being a Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction

We know well that this truth risks being contradicted by the hedonism of the so-called well-off societies: Life is exalted as long as it's pleasant, but one tends to not respect it any more when it is sick or damaged.

The fundamental human right, the presupposition of every other right, is the right to life itself. This is true of life from the moment of conception until its natural end. Abortion, consequently, cannot be a human right — it is the very opposite. It is a deep wound in society.

Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. There may be legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not with regard to abortion and euthanasia.

I am simply a pilgrim beginning the last leg of his pilgrimage on this earth

The world offers you comfort. But you were not made for comfort. You were made for greatness.

The concerns for non-violence, sustainable development, justice and peace, and care for our environment are of vital importance for humanity. They cannot, however, be understood apart from a profound reflection upon the innate dignity of every human life from conception to natural death: a dignity conferred by God Himself and thus inviolable.

While we rejoice in the new possibilities open to humanity, we also see the dangers arising from these possibilities, and we must ask ourselves how we can overcome them.