Humans are in search of themselves, and, of course, in this search they can also make mistakes. The church has experienced times of brilliance, like that of Thomas Aquinas. But the church has lived also times of decline in its ability to think. For example, we must not confuse the genius of Thomas Aquinas with the age of decadent Thomist commentaries. Unfortunately, I studied philosophy from textbooks that came from decadent or largely bankrupt Thomism. In thinking of the human being, therefore, the church should strive for genius and not for decadence.

This is how it is with Mary: If you want to know who she is, you ask theologians; if you want to know how to love her, you have to ask the people. In turn, Mary loved Jesus with the heart of the people, as we read in the Magnificat. We should not even think, therefore, that ‘thinking with the church’ means only thinking with the hierarchy of the church.

Vatican II was a re-reading of the Gospel in light of contemporary culture. Vatican II produced a renewal movement that simply comes from the same Gospel. Its fruits are enormous. Just recall the liturgy. The work of liturgical reform has been a service to the people as a re-reading of the Gospel from a concrete historical situation. Yes, there are hermeneutics of continuity and discontinuity, but one thing is clear: the dynamic of reading the Gospel, actualizing its message for today—which was typical of Vatican II—is absolutely irreversible. Then there are particular issues, like the liturgy according to the Vetus Ordo. I think the decision of Pope Benedict was prudent and motivated by the desire to help people who have this sensitivity. What is worrying, though, is the risk of the ideologization of the Vetus Ordo, its exploitation.

Mary, a woman, is more important than the bishops. I say this because we must not confuse the function with the dignity. We must therefore investigate further the role of women in the church. We have to work harder to develop a profound theology of the woman. Only by making this step will it be possible to better reflect on their function within the church. The feminine genius is needed wherever we make important decisions. The challenge today is this: to think about the specific place of women also in those places where the authority of the church is exercised for various areas of the church.

I ask Pope Francis about the enormous changes occurring in society and the way human beings are reinterpreting themselves. At this point he gets up and goes to get the breviary from his desk. It is in Latin, now worn from use. He opens to the Office of Readings for Friday of the 27th Week in Ordinary Time and reads me a passage from the Commonitorium Primum of St. Vincent of Lerins: “Even the dogma of the Christian religion must follow these laws, consolidating over the years, developing over time, deepening with age.”

St. Vincent of Lerins makes a comparison between the biological development of man and the transmission from one era to another of the deposit of faith, which grows and is strengthened with time. Here, human self-understanding changes with time and so also human consciousness deepens. Let us think of when slavery was accepted or the death penalty was allowed without any problem. So we grow in the understanding of the truth. Exegetes and theologians help the church to mature in her own judgment. Even the other sciences and their development help the church in its growth in understanding. There are ecclesiastical rules and precepts that were once effective, but now they have lost value or meaning. The view of the church’s teaching as a monolith to defend without nuance or different understandings is wrong.

I am a sinner. This is the most accurate definition. It is not a figure of speech, a literary genre. I am a sinner.

I believe that we always need time to lay the foundations for real, effective change.

The Society of Jesus is an institution in tension, always fundamentally in tension. A Jesuit is a person who is not centered in himself. The Society itself also looks to a center outside itself; its center is Christ and his church.

To be sure, I have never been like Blessed Imelda [a goody-goody], but I have never been a right-winger. It was my authoritarian way of making decisions that created problems

I do not want token consultations, but real consultations.

the thing the church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful; it needs nearness, proximity. I see the church as a field hospital after battle.

A person once asked me, in a provocative manner, if I approved of ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖity. I replied with another question: ‘Tell me: when God looks at a gαy person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love, or reject and condemn this person?’ We must always consider the person.

The dogmatic and moral teachings of the church are not all equivalent. The church’s pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently.

It is amazing to see the denunciations for lack of orthodoxy that come to Rome. I think the cases should be investigated by the local bishops’ conferences, which can get valuable assistance from Rome. These cases, in fact, are much better dealt with locally.

We must therefore investigate further the role of women in the church.

If the Christian is a restorationist, a legalist, if he wants everything clear and safe, then he will find nothing.

Ours is not a ‘lab faith,’ but a ‘journey faith,’ a historical faith.

The view of the church’s teaching as a monolith to defend without nuance or different understandings is wrong.

For many years there has been growing and spreading in this country the very false opinion, the result of the impious and absurd system of indifferentism, which holds that the Christian religion is capable of continually perfecting itself. And since the champions of this false opinion hesitate to apply this pretended perfectibility to the truths of faith, they do so to the external administration and discipline of the Church. And to give credit to their error they employ, for the most part not without inconsistency and fraud, the authority of Catholic theologians who, on occasion, establish this distinction between doctrine and discipline: that discipline is subject to change, doctrine remains always the same and is not subject to any modification. Once this is laid down, they state without any hesitation that on many points the discipline, the government, and the forms of external worship in use in the Church are no longer suitable to the character of our times, and that what is harmful to the progress and prosperity of the Catholic religion must be changed, (which is possible) without the teaching of faith and morals suffering any harm. Thus, under color of religious zeal and behind the mask of piety they introduce innovations, project reforms, devise a “regeneration” of the Church… Moreover, without realizing it, or pretending that they do not realize it, they are in direct contradiction to sound doctrine which they say they wish to reestablish and protect. For in fact, when they pretend that all the forms of the Church without distinction can be changed, are they not subjecting to this change those points of discipline which have their foundation in the divine law itself, which are joined to doctrines of faith by so close a bond that the rule of faith determines the rule of action?