The Themes of Benedict XVI's Life

Two themes have always accompanied me in my life, then: on the one hand, the theme of Christ, as the living, present God, the God who loves us and heals us through suffering, and, on the other hand, the theme of love, which for its part occupies a central place in Johannine theology--because I knew that love is the key to Christianity, that love is the angle from which it has to be approached.  Which is why I also wrote the first encyclical from the point of view of this key--Pope Benedict XVI in Peter Seewald's Light of the World, pg. 102