States kill when they apply the death penalty, when they send their people to war, or when they carry out extra-judicial or summary executions. They can also kill by omission, when they fail to guarantee to their people access to the bare essentials for life.
The earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth.
Our efforts must aim at restoring hope, righting wrongs, maintaining commitments, and thus promoting the well-being of individuals and of peoples.
The fight against poverty and hunger must be fought constantly and on many fronts, especially in its causes.
Fundamental relationships are being called into question, as is the very basis of marriage and the family. I can only reiterate the importance and, above all, the richness and the beauty of family life.
There is a danger that threatens everyone in the church, all of us. The danger of worldliness. It leads us to vanity, arrogance and pride.
Politics, according to the Social Doctrine of the Church, is one of the highest forms of charity, because it serves the common good. I cannot wash my hands, eh? We all have to give something!
Spiritual worldliness kills! It kills the soul! It kills the Church!
Today, the news is scandals; that is news, but the many children who don’t have food – that’s not news. This is grave. We can’t rest easy while things are this way.
We are impatient, anxious to see the whole picture, but God lets us see things slowly, quietly.
We now live in a culture of the temporary, in which more and more people are simply giving up on marriage as a public commitment.
A person who is not convinced, enthusiastic, certain and in love, will convince nobody.
Every time we judge our brother in our hearts or worse when we speak badly of them with others, we are murdering Christians.
Have the courage “to swim against the tide”. Have the courage to be happy.
Please waste time just playing with your kids!
A small step, in the midst of great human limitations, can be more pleasing to God than a life which appears outwardly in order but moves through the day without confronting great difficulties.
An authentic faith-which is never comfortable or completely personal-always involves a deep desire to change the world, to transmit values, to leave this earth somehow better than we found it.
If a company can declare bankruptcy, why can’t a country do so?
How beautiful it is to see that young people are ‘street preachers,’ joyfully bringing Jesus to every street, every town square and every corner of the earth!
The obsession with economic profit and technical efficiency puts the human rhythms of life at risk.