[Jesus Christ to Pope Francis] is the Lord with whom he speaks for hours every day in prayer. The Risen One who reached out, touched his life, and called him into mission.

Democracy is always an unfinished experiment, testing the capacity of each generation to live freedom nobly.

In the Church the transformative power of the Eucharist is experienced through the dignified celebration of Holy Mass, and people are empowered for mission because of that.

The Church offers the medicine of the divine mercy so that healed souls can grasp the truth that will liberate them in the fullest meaning of human freedom.

Freedom that lacks moral truth becomes its own worst enemy.

The world needs a pastor, whether it knows it or not.

The papacy is an impossible job. So the best thing Catholics can do for the pope is to pray for him.

Ideas have consequences and bad ideas can have lethal consequences.

In the Catholic view of things, abortion is a justice issue, not an issue of sexual morality... it is a civil rights issue, arguably the greatest civil rights issue of our time.

The emphasis on the "peripheries" is also a distinctively "Franciscan" way of expressing the pope's respect for untutored popular piety - a respect, I might add, that was shared by St. John Paul II.

The Guardian,[is] one of the most consistently anti-Catholic newspapers in the world.

If it's fiction, then it better be true.

Families are the Lord's workshop on earth to help us learn and live the gospel. We come into our families with a sacred duty to help strengthen each other spiritually.

Being appointed Elder Professor meant very much taking over the shop, in that the professor in those days controlled all the moneys.

In order to master the unruly torrent of life the learned man meditates, the poet quivers, and the political hero erects the fortress of his will.

Marriage is the most advanced form of warfare in the modern world.

I've gotten to a point, where I realize that happiness doesn't come from the outside.

There is a distinction, but no opposition, between theory and practice. Each to a certain extent supposes the other. Theory is dependent on practice; practice must have preceded theory.

[Question: Do you feel that scientists correct themselves as often as they should?] More often than politicians, but not as often as they should.

With ruin staring you in the face, there is nothing worse to live through than a siege of waiting and hoping. If you manage to live through it, nothing can ever jar your nerves after that.

If you let someone know you appreciate him or her, especially when you're going to disagree, it gets that person's defenses down.