I realized that everything I had to do I could not do on my own, and so I was almost obliged to put myself in God's hands, to trust in Jesus who - while I wrote my book on him - I felt bound to by an old and more profound friendship.

Today, I, too, wish to reaffirm that I intend to continue on the path toward improved relations and friendship with the Jewish people, following the decisive lead given by John Paul II.

I don't know if the term 'liberation theology,' which can be interpreted in a very positive sense, will help us much. What's important is the common rationality to which the church offers a fundamental contribution, and which must always help in the education of conscience, both for public and for private life.

The positive aspects of modernity are to be acknowledged unreservedly: we are all grateful for the marvellous possibilities that it has opened up for mankind and for the progress in humanity that has been granted to us.

All the great works of art, the cathedrals - the Gothic cathedrals and the splendid Baroque churches - are a luminous sign of God, and thus are truly a manifestation, an epiphany of God.

There are those who argue that the public celebration of festivals such as Christmas should be discouraged, in the questionable belief that it might somehow offend those of other religions or none.

The Christian faith can never be separated from the soil of sacred events, from the choice made by God, who wanted to speak to us, to become man, to die and rise again, in a particular place and at a particular time.

Art is elemental. Reason alone as it's expressed in the sciences can't be man's complete answer to reality, and it can't express everything that man can, wants to, and has to express. I think God built this into man. Art along with science is the highest gift God has given him.

How much we need, in the church and in society, witnesses of the beauty of holiness, witnesses of the splendour of truth, witnesses of the joy and freedom born of a living relationship with Christ!

In reality, I am more a professor, one who reflects and mediates on spiritual questions. Practical governance is not my strong point, and this is certainly a weakness. But I do not see myself as a failure. For eight years, I carried out my work.

We need Grace and forgiveness.

Human rights, of course, must include the right to religious freedom, understood as the expression of a dimension that is at once individual and communitarian - a vision that brings out the unity of the person while clearly distinguishing between the dimension of the citizen and that of the believer.

A just laicism allows religious freedom. The state does not impose religion but rather gives space to religions with a responsibility toward civil society, and therefore it allows these religions to be factors in building up society.

An important function of theology is to keep religion tied to reason and reason to religion. Both roles are of essential importance for humanity.

We must respect the interior laws of creation, of this Earth, to learn these laws and obey them if we want to survive.

Above all, we must have great respect for these people who also suffer and who want to find their own way of correct living. On the other hand, to create a legal form of a kind of homosexual marriage, in reality, does not help these people.

The life of the community, both domestically and internationally, clearly demonstrates that respect for rights, and the guarantees that follow from them, are measures of the common good that serve to evaluate the relationship between justice and injustice, development and poverty, security and conflict.

Having a clear faith, based on the creed of the church is often labeled today as fundamentalism. Whereas relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and swept along by every wind of teaching, look like the only attitude acceptable to today's standards.

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.

God does not change; he is Love, ever and always. In himself, he is communion, unity in Trinity, and all his words and works are directed to communion.

God of peace, bring your peace to our violent world: peace in the hearts of all men and women and peace among the nations of the Earth.

Artificial intelligence, in fact, is obviously an intelligence transmitted by conscious subjects, an intelligence placed in equipment. It has a clear origin, in fact, in the intelligence of the human creators of such equipment.

I would designate as science fiction in the best sense: they are visions and anticipations by which we seek to attain a true knowledge, but, in fact, they are only imaginations whereby we seek to draw near to the reality.

We must have great respect for these people who also suffer and who want to find their own way of correct living. On the other hand, to create a legal form of a kind of homosexual marriage, in reality, does not help these people.

It is very important for a priest, in the parish itself, to see how people trust in him and to experience, in addition to their trust, also their generosity in pardoning his weaknesses.

It is essential that God created men and women to be one, as it is said in the first chapters of the Bible. So I think even if our culture is against marriage as essential form of relations between human beings, between women and men. I think our nature is always present, and we can understand it if we will understand it.

Loving the church also means having the courage to make difficult, trying choices, having ever before oneself the good of the church and not one's own.

If we may not remain silent about evil in the Church, then neither should we keep silent about the great shining path of goodness and purity which the Christian faith has traced out over the course of the centuries.

Both need each other: The agnostic cannot be content to not know, but must be in search of the great truth of faith; the Catholic cannot be content to have faith, but must be in search of God all the time, and in the dialogue with others, a Catholic can learn more about God in a deeper fashion.

On the one hand, faith is a profoundly personal contact with God, which touches me in my innermost being and places me in front of the living God in absolute immediacy in such a way that I can speak with Him, love Him, and enter into communion with Him.

The Gospel purifies and renews: it bears fruit wherever the community of believers hears and welcomes the grace of God in truth and lives in charity. This is my faith; this is my joy.