“Everyone agrees the celibacy rule is just a Church law dating from the 11th century, not a divine command.”

At the same time we are aware that our various religions and ethical traditions often offer very different bases for what is helpful and what is unhelpful for men and women, what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is evil.

Humanity today possesses sufficient economic, cultural and spiritual resources to introduce a better global order.

The Gospel has to be the norm.

In the event that my illness worsens, I want to have a guarantee that I can die in a dignified manner. Nowhere in the bible does it say that a person has to stick it out to the decreed end. No one tells us what “decreed” means.

If priests were allowed to marry, if this would be an optional thing, and if he could have wife and children, he would certainly have less temptation to satisfy certain sexual impulses with minors.

But I have to add – and this answers your other question – this catholicity in time and in space is only meaningful for me if there is, at the same time, a concentration on the Gospel.

I am firmly convinced that there is life after death, not in a primitive sense but as the entry of my completely finite person into God’s infinity, as a transition into another reality beyond the dimension of space and time that pure reason can neither affirm nor deny.

All historical experience demonstrates the following: Our earth cannot be changed unless in the not too distant future an alteration in the consciousness of individuals is achieved.

Alluding to hell is a warning that a person can completely neglect his purpose in life. I don’t believe in an eternal hell.

However, if the religions in essence merely repeat statements from the United Nations Human Rights Declaration, such a Declaration becomes superfluous; an ethic is more than rights.

A Church which abandons the truth abandons itself.

There will be peace on earth when there is peace among the world religions.

As a matter of fact, you have deficiencies in all religions, but you have truth in all religions.

There will be no peace among the nations without peace among the religions. There will be no peace among the religions without dialogue among the religions.

It is not certain that everything is certain, neither is it certain that everything is uncertain.

God’s love does not protect us from suffering. God’s love protects us in the midst of suffering.

Definition of a relationship – an enduring, mutually-agreed upon connection or union, which fulfills certain needs of the individuals involved and the society in which they live.

When you say you agree to a thing in principle you mean that you have not the slightest intention of carrying it out in practice.

Couples are wholes and not wholes, what agrees disagrees, the concordant is discordant. From all things one and from one all things.

I cannot agree with those who rank modesty among the virtues.

I know who I am, I know what I can and can’t do. I know what I will and won’t do. I know what I’m capable of and I don’t agree to do things that I don’t think I can pull off.

People have said, ‘You don’t need to do any more biopics. You don’t need to play any more real people.’ I don’t agree with that.

Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.

Thinking isn’t agreeing or disagreeing. That’s voting.