'Being 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' (Deus Caritas Est, 1).
'To understand faith afresh as something that makes possible true humanity in the world of today’ (Introduction to Christianity).
‘From today’s crisis will emerge a church that has lost a great deal…it will become small and will have to start pretty much all over again. It will be a more spiritual church…it will be poor and will become the Church of the destitute’. (‘What will the Church look like?’in Faith and the Future, San Francisco, Ignatius Press, 2009).
‘Christianity is great because love is great. It burns, yet this is not a destructive fire but a fire that makes things bright and pure and free and grand. Being a Christian is daring to entrust oneself to this burning fire’. (God and the World. Ignatius Press, 2002).
'The Church is called to be an example of how true freedom can be achieved and lived. For this reason, ‘The growth of freedom that humankind owes to the martyrs is infinitely greater than that which it could be given by revolutionaries’ (Church, Ecumenism and Politics, 174).
"Having a clear faith based on the Creed of the church is often labeled as fundamentalism. Whereas relativism, that is, letting oneself be 'tossed here and there, carried about by every wind of doctrine,' seems the only attitude that can cope with modern times. We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one's own ego and desires."
—Homily, April 18, 2005
"The Lord God did not counter the threats of history with external power, as we human beings would expect according to the prospects of our world. His weapon is goodness. He revealed himself as a child, born in a stable. This is precisely how he counters with his power, completely different from the destructive powers of violence. In this very way he saves us. In this very way he shows us what saves."
—Speech, Dec. 22, 2005
"We have a lurking suspicion that a person who does not sin must really be basically boring and that something is missing from his life."
—Homily, Dec. 8, 2005