Cardinals

"Yet a martyr is not only someone who performs extraordinary deeds, but in a certain sense, it is also someone who, for the love of his faith, knows how to make the ordinary extraordinary."

"Determined to confront the structures of injustice in order to assert their children's rights, Neapolitan mothers not only know how to protect their children, like all mothers, but they also know how to defend the freedom of this land, passing on from generation to generation those universal and immutable ethical values that make every man a true man. Always present, they know how to dry their children's tears, but they also know how to be objective and strict when a child betrays the family spirit. When we say “mum”, we mean a safe haven, but also the law. When the rulers of our city changed, when the state was absent, those who truly reigned and jealously guarded the traditions, customs and practices that have come down to us were, then as now, mothers."

"The seed of hope may be the smallest, but it can give life to a lush tree and bear much fruit if we have the courage to face the fears that threaten our city, if we have the strength to break the code of silence and, in solidarity with one another, are able to organise new structures and new forms of charity to lift up those who are alone, those in material and spiritual need. Without indulging in lamentation or victimhood, without waiting for others to take the fate of the south to heart, without clinging to pure welfare, the time has come for the Neapolitans to reclaim their land, relaunching politics as a service to the city, as a school of legality, as a centre for observing the most thorny social issues. We have the energy to do it!"

"I think that to safeguard the earth and maintain its great heritage it is important to exalt human responsibility, because the only being responsible for the other beings is man. Nothing less can come about from his humanity and his responsibility."

"Original dispositions of the Creator can never be annulled. Biblical anthropology suggests, therefore, that one must address with an attitude of relationship and not of competition, the problems that at the public or private level affect the differences of sex."

"The Congregation for Bishops, unlike the Congregation for Saints, deals with the pastoral profiles of candidates who are not yet perfect, but of men on the way of perfection. What certainly counts in a priest proposed for the episcopate are the theological and cardinal virtues, the so-called principal human virtues. Above all, what is most important for this office is prudence. This should not be understood as reticence or timidity, but as balance between action and reflection while exercising a responsibility that requires great dedication and courage."

"The priority is not to expand the Church. The priority is not to be more, to have more baptisms or religious weddings. The priority is to build a world of brothers and sisters with those who share our faith or have a different faith, and with those who have no faith."

"The purpose of all the Church's activity is the salvation of souls. The Curia and other institutions are instruments that must be as flexible as possible in the Pope's and Bishops' hands, to take Christ to the ends of the world."

"On the pastoral level, the Cardinal should help the Holy Father as he does as a member of the universal Church."

"Many say that the more one integrates symbols and gestures of an indigenous culture, the better the inculturation is obtained. This is true, in a certain way. But the more urgent need is the interiorization of what is happening in the liturgy. This is the real inculturation. We continually switch the meanings around. Some liturgists often go just by the exterior things."

"The Gospel is about the poor: if we removed from the Gospel the pages about the poor, only the cover would remain, so if I want to live the Gospel, I must take the poor into account. And if I take the poor into account, perhaps I can really meet Jesus, since he identifies himself with the poor."

"Ours is an unassuming Church -- we are less than 0.1% of the population -- but it seeks to be significant, and it desires to be a sign and sacrament of the Kingdom of God. To live dialogue on a daily basis, the Christian must know and feel himself as the ‘sacrament of encounter. The whole local Church must ask itself how to concretely live its mission. Our Church is a Church of encounter and dialogue. Yet, although we have made a good start, we can do much more. or example, how to live Islamic-Christian dialogue after the pope’s visit, after Fratelli tutti, after the document of the Universal Fraternity signed by Pope Francis and the Grand Imam al Tayyeb?"

"(About the 2023 Morocco's earthquake) Most of all, I think they will need people to come and support them, because psychologically and spiritually they are very affected."

"Emigrating is a human right, but before that right to migrate, everyone also has the right to stay where they were born and where they have developed their lives."

"For me, Pope Francis was like a father, a model pastor, a friend who knew me. I greeted him for the first time at one of those meetings where there are 200 people and the Pope shakes hands with everyone. Then in 2018, he appointed me Bishop of Rabat at the request of the corresponding congregation, and when I got to know him a little better, he admitted that he had appointed me bishop without even knowing what I looked like. I got to know him on a more personal level in 2019, when Francis came to Morocco and I was the host who was to receive him. He came to comfort us and to confirm us in the faith. My fondest memory of that visit was when we went together to visit a social work, in a visit described as private, in which only the driver, security, he and I were present. We sat in the back seat of the car, talking in Spanish and laughing together, first for 20 minutes on the way there and then for 30 minutes on the way back. And there I was able to explain to him who I was and what the Church was like in Morocco. And he probably liked me, because I made him laugh."

"I suffer a lot when, in Spain, some people, after having participated in the Eucharistic celebration, ask me, in a spiteful tone, not to send any more migrants from Morocco. I ask myself: how is it possible to go to Mass and feel almost no compassion for the men, women and children who are suffering?"

"I don't like my name appearing on the papal candidate lists."

"If I am elected, I will flee from the Conclave."

"The Church, which is not only the bishops, must be where there is pain. Christians must be like the blood that goes to the wound without being called. When the blood gushes from the wound, it is not that it wants to escape; it wants to close the wound with platelets. A Christian should be where there is a wound in the world, trying to heal that wound. One should be everywhere, but especially where there is a wound."

"Discover that all men are my brothers, even though they do not think and believe as I do. That is not easy, and that can only be given to us by Our Lord and He alone enables us to do so. I think one has to learn to get out of the sofa and actually get oneself out there, out in the streets. We have to get together with all men, in real situations in which they are, shaking hands with them, and, at the same time, sharing with them everything that we are."

"There are different cultures, different ways of thinking, different ways of living the faith and of evangelizing, but we wish to love each other as brothers and sisters, respecting our legitimate differences, and valuing each other as gifts for the Church."

"I pray to the Spirit, not vaingloriously with this title, as titles aren't the most important in life, but the fraternal service of love. What is decisive, what makes us worth more, is to love God and our neighbor."

"May fallen-away Catholics return to the house of their mother, who awaits them with an open heart! We are sad that you have gone away. If it was our fault, we ask for forgiveness. We do not want to be like the older son in the parable, who was filled with scorn. We are brothers and God wants us to be together."

"For centuries, the people have always been with the Church and the Church has always been by the people's side because it has always sought to serve the country and not the leaders."

"We should work towards an "education of hope," so that the Church in Rome may continue to proclaim the Gospel of the Risen Lord with renewed energy, as it is the ‘first fruit’ of new life that has no end. We should work towards a perseverant prayer that purifies the heart, opens itself to God and to others and sparks a testimony of love, especially towards the poor, and to a positive cooperation that knows how to find the good wherever it is."

"If universal jurisdiction over our faithful is recognized to us, we can help foster this energy so that its strength is in the service of the universal Church. Otherwise what we lose the universal Church will lose."

"While moral rectitude cannot be substituted by professional competencies, it does promote and cultivate them."

"We will be humble and trusting pilgrims in a place that is of highest importance in the faith, bringing our hopes and anxieties, and in the celebration of the Eucharist, in our encounter with the Risen Lord, we will pray for ourselves and our Church, that we may receive the gift of a joyful and courageous faith, so as to produce hope and dialogue with those who will ask us about the meaning of life. We owe it to Rome, to offer this city a renewed proclamation of the Gospel, capable of transforming the daily lives of families, youth, the sick, and the poor."

"We shouldn't cede to those who want to impose hate. We should be able to live, respecting us mutually."

"We are aware that the good news has been planted by missionaries in the past centuries and that our Church was born from the blood of our ancient martyrs. Today we want to be worthy of the grace of our origins."

"When faced with violence, we stand up against it. This is not the way, not the solution. So how do we live? We live with pain. Every day we have to encourage those brothers or sisters who say they are happy and that everything is fine. No it isn't! There are many forms of injustice and we must get involved. We cannot just remain on the side lines."

"We want to accompany people and be communities that encounter Christ. If we are relating in a way that is not what Christ wants, but with an attitude of arrogance, abuse of the other, something has to change. We have to change the way we relate to each other, to society, and to these people who are suffering because they are victims. Sometimes you have a clear goal, but sometimes you don't."

"Each bishop has his qualities and in each historical moment society needs different styles."

"As a society we have to be united and be honest, without depriving the most vulnerable of material goods, because in doing so we take away their hope, which is much worse."

"It's sad when there are people that bow before human power and forget the need to love, which is the great power with which revolutions are made. We, priests, are also to blame for this, because we have often talked about politics instead of Christ. It's true that in dramatic circumstances it's necessary to do so, but once the exceptional situations are surmounted, political freedom must be an integral part of the human person."

"It's a tribunal because it judges. Penitentiary because it deals with penance and Apostolic because the Lord has told us to forgive, therefore it does just that."

"When values have their foundation in man, they are very fragile. It's enough to look at the 20th century."

"It is necessary to open the archives. It is necessary to confront everything, from both the light and dark sides. We need to promote freedom of research and not fear the truth."

"In the recent history of the Church in Europe, but also in other places throughout the world, there are witnesses and experiences of this martyrdom which arose even as icons of holiness: and the liturgical memory which the Church celebrates with veneration is the eternal sign that martyrdom is always the most explicit and convincing form of transmission of the faith."

"For we Europeans, regaining Christian memory and heritage - learning from past generations - means going back to the roots of our historical identity, drinking from the fountain of the Word of God. For we Europeans professing our faith, nourished by listening to the Word and by ecclesial experience, must take the form of bearing witness."

"Faith in the Eucharist is not an easy faith. One cannot use the criterion of knowledge through contact or the experience of the Presence. It is pure faith. This is why I said that the Eucharist is "the testing ground of faith," of our faith. If there is no faith in the Eucharist it is because an approach is lacking to the mystery of the faith."

"Above all, our service requires a passion for unity and a love for the Church as it was founded by Christ and as He wanted it. This passion drives us to continuous study, it permits us to learn through experience, to explore possible new paths, as well as to exercise the virtue of patience since the times are not ours but are the Holy Spirit's."

"We may talk, but dialogue is not about one truth versus another. Fraternity is not about understanding who is wrong and who is right, but about discovering together how each one of us, through our respective faiths, can become true brothers and sisters."

"If in certain countries and in certain groups of Europe there is a crisis of faith, this is not solved by the Churches of Europe folding up but with openness towards the universal mission."

"We cannot afford to fail in our peacebuilding effort. If God forbid, we do not manage to do this; we will not only be failing the people of CAR but the international community as well. Six neighbouring countries surround us. We have already seen that when CAR as a country collapses, the virus of destabilisation does not only affect us alone but spreads to the whole region. We should, therefore, be mindful of our larger responsibility as a people."

"Those who knew him close up could only wonder at so much bitterness and admire his strength of mind and calm. I remember his deep extempore thinking in a meeting on the virtue of fortitude. It was his silent and dignified response to the unfair and base attacks. In our meetings within the Congregation, that – note well – still have the collegial method of proceeding, and in personal contacts we knew a different Ratzinger."

"A divided Church is against the will of Jesus Christ and is anti-missionary and anti-evangelizing. We should use every means possible, such as prayer, to fulfill Jesus' will. Loving the Church, for priests, means realizing that this is not going well. We need to maintain Christ's spirit and bear witness to unity."

"Look carefully around St Peter's and St Mary Major and ask the crowd: they will all answer that they are waiting for a new Francis. Without looking for a photocopy, I am convinced that we will go ahead along Bergoglio's line, I have spoken about it with many cardinals. Interviewer: the opposing factions? Cardinal Kasper: In the general congregations they seem to me to be a small group. The Church cannot afford to backtrack now."

"Tradition is not a stagnant lake, but is like a spring, or a river: it is something alive. The Church is a living organism and thus it always needs to validly translation the Catholic tradition into present situations."

"People have been emailing and calling one after the other to say they had seen the announcement. I myself did not know about the announcement at all and I had no contact in advance. Personally, I don't think I'm the most suitable person to be a cardinal, so I still find it hard to believe."