Have no fear of moving into the unknown

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. Modern society has the means of protecting itself, without definitively denying criminals the chance to reform. I …appeal…for a consensus to end the death penalty, which is both cruel and unnecessary.

Euthanasia and assisted suicide are never acceptable acts of mercy. They always gravely exploit the suffering and desperate, extinguishing life in the name of the quality of life itself.

Solidarity is not a feeling of vague compassion or shallow distress at the misfortunes of so many people, both near and far. On the contrary, it is a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good; that is to say to the good of all and of each individual, because we are all really responsible for all.

The human being is single, unique, and unrepeatable, someone thought of and chosen from eternity, someone called and identified by name.

There is no true peace without fairness , truth , justice and solidarity.

Your wish to become a priest, or at least your wish to discover if you are being called to be one. And so the question is a serious one, because you have to prepare thoroughly, with clear intentions and an austere formation.

The priestly vocation is essentially a call to sanctity, in the form that derives from the Sacrament of Holy Orders. Sanctity is intimacy with God; it is the imitation of Christ, poor, chaste and humble; it is unreserved love for souls and self-giving to their true good; it is love for the church which is holy and wants us to be holy, because such is the mission that Christ has entrusted to it.

The Holy Father reiterates his firm and absolute disapproval of such actions that offend God, violate the fundamental right to life and undermine peaceful coexistence.

In suffocating the voice of conscience, passion carries with itself a restlessness of the body and the senses: it is the restlessness of the 'external man.' When the internal man has been reduced to silence, then passion, once it has been given freedom of action, so to speak, exhibits itself as an insistent tendency to satisfy the senses and the body.