Students undergo a psychological evaluation, and the question here really, in the end, is not homosexuality; the question is celibacy and how best you can be helped to live that vow. If you have not resolved the question of your homosexuality and enter into an all-male environment where you can easily fall, then it would be as if nongays were to go study at a convent. Celibacy in the end is a grace, but you don't want to make it worse. I think this is the main concern. If [the guidelines] were to deal with this concern, then I think it would be a useful situation because, again, I think this is where the key lies, in what celibacy means. I wish [the Vatican] would concentrate on that and not go off into the whole question of sexual morality or gays, because at the present time that can never be understood; it will only increase polemics and unnecessary arguments. I think [the guidelines] should say, if we are going to keep the vow of celibacy, this [is what] we believe to be the psychological conditions of those who are going to be expected to take such a vow -- a certain maturity. That's done even now. I would hope it moves in that direction rather than in the direction of saying we cannot have gays in the seminary, we cannot have gay priests. I can't imagine that. It would be disastrous to do something like that.

On suffering:
I myself, personally and instinctively, am against it. I shall do everything possible to avoid every single suffering I can. I think that's a healthy attitude. The question is, when you can't do any more about it, something remains. So then what are you going to do about suffering? How are you going to let it touch your life? How do you respond to it? What I propose is, in some ways, something I learned either directly from this Holy Father, John Paul II, or from his writings -- he wrote an encyclical on suffering once. Suffering itself is a sign of something. It's a sign that you have been violated at the level of your identity. Something should not be. You have a reaction immediately of anger, of wanting to send [suffering] away. Why? If there is no meaning to life, then the question "Why?" doesn't mean anything. You cannot ask why the sun goes up in the morning. Things just happen. And suffering, pain, sorrow -- it happens. That's life. But you say, "That's not true. Something is wrong. This should not be." Think of the great cry of Ivan Karamazov in Dostoevsky's novel. He will not rest until he sees justice, and when he's dead, he wants somebody to raise him up so he can see whatever justified the crying, the tears of an innocent child.

This anger [about suffering] is, I think, a wonderful thing, because it begins and sustains a demand, a quest. The Bible contains it. The Book of Job is all about that. When Job refuses all these visitors who come in to tell him, "This is the reason [you are suffering]," or "It's your fault," or "Life is like that," or "You must accept God, he's punishing you," Job says, "No, no, no, no, no. It's just not so, and I demand that my vindicator, someone who will show I am right, appear." It's great that at the end God pops up, and He doesn't answer any questions. He doesn't tell Job why. But He says, "You are right." When we face suffering that way, and especially when we face it and deal with it together with other people, it will bring us to an awareness of and to dimensions of the mystery of human life that are otherwise closed.

I once told the Holy Father, "I just saw a film about your life. You went though all kinds of things, and my biggest suffering is a lack of parking, and then I blaspheme already against God because I can't find a parking space. You must look at this and say these are Mickey Mouse problems." And he said that you cannot compare sufferings. It is the greatest mistake, because suffering is at the level of identity, and we don't have the same identity. Something that could be very superficial for me could be absolutely devastating for you. You cannot measure suffering or compare it.

Again, I am not doing anything to advance my experiences with suffering. I assure you I'll avoid it until the last possible minute. But in the end I see that it is a frontier to be crossed to a new level of awareness -- about life, about reality, and about what may lie beyond and behind it all.

On religion as a problem or solution in an age of terror:
I think it is both. A religious problem in the end has a religious solution. By religion I mean our stand before the great and ultimate questions. The word "terror" is a religious word. In fact, religious anthropologists say the experience one has before the sacred is awe but also a great fear, a great terror. In all religions, when there is a hierophany or an epiphany, people are terrorized because they are facing the possibility of a force that cannot in any way be controlled -- of absolute chaos. Well, a terrorist attack tries to impress this feeling on the population. This is what we are having. Things have happened that we never thought possible. How could this be? And that terrorizes. It can only be dealt with by going to the level at which the terror occurs: namely, is life therefore hopeless, or am I greater than what the terror threatens? That's the only way you can meet terror. Terror is religious, but the response is also religious. It should be the overcoming of the terror by the affirmation of human dignity and hope. I think this is happening today. Both are working their ways. I hope that hope wins.

On the mystery that confronts us:
GOD AT THE RITZ ends at a point that suggests the religious quest can only go so far -- that in the end, actually, the mystery remains just that. To move from discussing the possibility of what, really, we can ever know of this mystery to the question of revelation, I use Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas, who said that if the divinity (the infinite) is ever going to have contact with the world (the finite), if we're going to see a trace of God in the world, then it can only be in the shape of radical humility. I love this, because it's completely the opposite of God appearing as a power to rule. If the appearance of God is absolute humility, then there is no need to fear. On the contrary, faith would lead to service and not to violence. I frankly believe that unless this is so, then faith does lead to violence. And if I didn't believe that the incarnation of God takes the shape of radical humility, I would take this collar off.