First as Joseph Ratzinger, then as Benedict XVI, the head of the Roman Catholic church, elected pope five years ago, has poured out his views on many subjects, in books, interviews, sermons and, most recently, in encyclicals. As the enforcer of his church's doctrinal orthodoxy for nearly quarter of a century before that, Benedict's opinions on issues such as abortion, gay sex and women's ordination are predictably conservative.
But, as some of the following quotations show, he is also keenly "green" and, in some of his thinking on society and business, even quite "pink".
Key concepts in Benedict's thinking
"We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognise anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one's own ego and desires."
Homily to his fellow-cardinals before the conclave at which he was elected pope, 2005
On sex, gender and marriage
"Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder."
Homosexualitis problema, a letter to bishops on the pastoral care of homosexuals, 1986
"Science without conscience can only lead to man's ruin."
Donum Vitae, 1987
"We Christians must be very careful — to live a faith that comes from the Logos, from creative reason, and that, because of this, is also open to all that is truly rational."
Lecture on receiving St Benedict award for the promotion of life and the family in Europe, 2005.
"If there is a lack of respect for the right to life and to a natural death, if human conception gestation and birth are made artificial, if human embryos are sacrificed to research, the conscience of society ends up losing the concept of human ecology and, along with it, that of environmental ecology."
Caritas in Veritate, 2009
"The Catholic church must understand itself as a creative minority"
Speaking to correspondents on flight to Prague, 2010
"It is only in the marital relationship that the use of the sexual facility can be morally good. A person engaging in homosexual behaviour therefore acts immorally."
Homosexualitis problema
"The proper reaction to crimes committed against homosexual persons should not be to claim that the homosexual condition is not disordered."
Ibid
"It is deplorable that homosexual persons have been and are the object of violent malice in speech or in action. Such treatment deserves condemnation from the Church's pastors wherever it occurs."
Ibid
"The gift of human life must be actualised in marriage through the specific and exclusive acts of husband and wife, in accordance with the laws inscribed in their persons and in their union." Donum Vitae, 1987
"The abortion mentality which has made [IVF] possible thus leads, whether one wants it or not, to man's domination over the life and death of his fellow human beings and can lead to a system of radical eugenics."
Ibid
"Marriage does not confer upon the spouses the right to have a child. Spouses who find themselves in this sad situation are called to find in it an opportunity for sharing in a particular way in the Lord's cross."
Ibid
On women
"Jesus chose 12 men as fathers of the new Israel, 'to be with Him and to be sent out to proclaim the message', but … among the disciples many women were also chosen. They played an active role within the context of Jesus's mission."
Speaking to a general audience in Rome, 2007
On politics and economics
"Wherever politics tries to be redemptive, it is promising too much. Where it wishes to do the work of God, it becomes not divine, but demonic."
Truth and Tolerance, 2004
"The risk for our time is that the de facto interdependence of people and nations is not matched by ethical interaction of consciences and minds that would give rise to truly human development."
Caritas in Veritate, 2009
"The market is not, and must not become, the place where the strong subdue the weak."
Truth and Tolerance, 2004
On life and death
"There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia."
Worthiness to receive
On the environment
"The church has a responsibility towards creation and she must assert this responsibility in the public sphere."
Caritas in Veritate, 2009
On music
"'Rock' is the expression of elemental passions, and at rock festivals it assumes a cultic character, a form of worship, in fact, in opposition to Christian worship."
The Spirit of the Liturgy, 2000
On the papacy
"Over the pope as the expression of the binding claim of ecclesiastical authority there still stands one's own conscience, which must be obeyed before all else, if necessary even against the requirement of ecclesiastical authority."
Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II, 1968
On fear
"I'm only afraid at the dentist."
From an interview with Bavarian television, 1997
SIC: TG/UK