It’s not every day that a close ally and adviser to a pope, not to mention a cardinal of the Catholic Church, distances himself from that pope. So when Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston said Saturday night it was “understandable” that Pope Francis’s language in Chile about abuse victims accusing a bishop of a cover-up had caused “great pain,” it was bound to stir reaction.

Dear young people, I am pleased to be here with you. These meetings are very important for me, especially in this year of preparation for the Synod on young people. Your faces, your questions and your lives are important for the Church and we need to give them the importance they deserve.

This is a pope, after all, hardly shy about wielding his own personal power when he believes something important is at stake, from firing Vatican personnel to making big-picture decisions on matters such as the admission of divorced and remarried Catholics to Communion.

These days I have spent among you have been very intense and gratifying. I have been able to learn about and experience the different realities that shape these lands, and to share at first hand the faith of God’s holy and faithful people, which does us so much good. Thank you for the opportunity to “touch” the faith of the people that God has entrusted to you.

Pope Francis on Sunday met with a group of those unseen warriors, in the form of contemplative women religious, and urged them to keep pressing the spiritual battle against what he calls a “throw-away” culture.

We thank you in a special way for the holiness that has flourished in our land. Our Archdiocesan Church has been made fruitful by the apostolic labours of Saint Turibius of Mogrovejo, enlarged by the prayer, penance and charity “of Saint Rose of Lima and Saint Martin de Porres, adorned by the missionary zeal of Saint Francisco Solano and the humble service of Saint Juan Macías.

Seeing you here, I get the impression that you took advantage of this visit to get out for some fresh air! Mother Soledad, I thank you for your words of welcome, and I thank all of you, who “from the silence of the cloister walk ever by my side”.

think of the mothers and grandmothers of this nation; they are a true driving force for the life and the families of Peru. What would Peru be like, without its mothers and grandmothers! What would our lives be like without them! Our love for Mary must help us to feel appreciation and gratitude for women, for our mothers and grandmothers, who are a bastion in the life in our cities. Almost always in silence, they carry life forward. It is the silence and strength of hope. Thank you for your witness.

A good spiritual test is to ask ourselves whether we can laugh at ourselves. Laughter saves us from the “self-absorbed promethean neopelagianism of those who ultimately trust only in their own powers and feel superior to others”.[1] Brothers and sisters, laugh in community, and not at the community or at others! Let us be on guard against people so important that they have forgotten to smile in their lives.