You tell me: Can you live crushed under the weight of the present? Without a memory of the past and without the desire to look ahead to the future by building something, a future, a family? Can you go on like this? This, to me, is the most urgent problem that the Church is facing.

Politics is a noble activity. We should revalue it, practise it with vocation and a dedication that requires testimony, martyrdom, that is to die for the common good.

The worship of the golden calf of old has found a new and heartless image in the cult of money and the dictatorship of an economy which is faceless and lacking any truly human goal.

A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges is not Christian. This is not in the Gospel.

To do all that one is able to do, is to be a man; to do all that one would like to do, is to be a god.

I was friends with Susan Sontag the last four years of her life. She had this amazing charisma and so much energy, but she had a sad little funeral in Montparnasse in Paris. It was rainy. It was all wrong. And I was thinking, 'God, she loved life so much.'

But back to your question, it was a wonderful experience with the Art Ensemble, and I keep in contact and sort of follow what's going on, but it was also very important to make this step, you may say this leap of faith.

There is a sense of call to take leadership roles. You're serving people and submitting to God as best you can.