What I hope my liberal friends (and I have more than a few) take from this pontificate is that mercy and truth are never separable in Catholic pastoral life.

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.

[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.

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 more we dig this world, the more prisoners we become

Acts don't mean anything. Acts do not matter--you, your awareness, your being conscious, mindful, is what matters. What you do is not the concern.

Your aim will be knowledge and wisdom, not the reflected glamour of fame.

There is nothing beautiful or sweet or great in life that is not mysterious.

Smiles, like humor, are the most serious and complex forms of communication used by human beings.

Getting staked had been a hard lesson in choosing one's friends wisely.

[Dario Argento] would yell at you in Italian, and I'd have no idea what he was saying. I'd just go, "Okay!". But it was a really great experience [filming Two Evil Eyes ].

I am thinking particularly of a shower I took where the lower half of my body was under the running water and the upper half was laid out on the bath mat, eating a loaf of bread.

Inner peace is found by facing life squarely, solving its problems, and delving as far beneath its surface as possible to discover its verities and realities.

I was a great friend of the Europeans. I grew up in Wiesbaden. I love Germany very much.