Respect for essential elements of human dignity, such as the right to life and the right to religious freedom, is a condition for the moral legitimacy of every social and legal norm.

- Message for the 44th World Day of Peace

Law is the condition of love.

- Letter to Seminarians, 18 October 2010

Law is the condition of love.

- Letter to Seminarians, 18 October 2010

There is no contradiction between God's law and human freedom: God's law correctly interpreted neither attenuates nor, even less, eliminates man's freedom. On the contrary, it guarantees and fosters this freedom because, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us, 'freedom ... attains its perfection when directed toward God, our beatitude' (no. 1731)."

- Papal Address to Members of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, 27 April 2006