Quotes by Popes

As the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole world in which we live.
John Paul II
If God created shadows it was to better emphasise the light.
Pope John XXIII
The problem is not in being sinners, the problem is when we don't let ourselves be transformed in love by the encounter with Christ.
Pope Francis
The fundamental human right, the presupposition of every other right, is the right to life itself. This is true of life from the moment of conception until its natural end. Abortion, consequently, cannot be a human right -- it is the very opposite. It is a deep wound in society.
Pope Benedict XVI
We can get angry: it's even healthy to get angry from time to time.
Pope Francis
How many winds of doctrine we have known in recent decades, how many ideological currents, how many ways of thinking. The small boat of thought of many Christians has often been tossed about by these waves - thrown from one extreme to the other: from Marxism to liberalism, even to libertinism; from collectivism to radical individualism; from atheism to a vague religious mysticism; from agnosticism to syncretism, and so forth. Every day new sects are created and what Saint Paul says about human trickery comes true, with cunning which tries to draw those into error (cf Ephesians 4, 14). Having a clear Faith, based on the Creed of the Church, is often labeled today as a fundamentalism. Whereas, relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and 'swept along by every wind of teaching', looks like the only attitude acceptable to today's standards. We are moving towards a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as certain and which has as its highest goal one's own ego and one's own desires. However, we have a different goal: the Son of God, true man. He is the measure of true humanism. Being an 'Adult' means having a faith which does not follow the waves of today's fashions or the latest novelties. A faith which is deeply rooted in friendship with Christ is adult and mature. It is this friendship which opens us up to all that is good and gives us the knowledge to judge true from false, and deceit from truth.
Pope Benedict XVI
The human person finds his perfection "in seeking and loving what is true and good.
Pope Benedict XVI
The lack of historical memory is a serious shortcoming in our society. A mentality that can only say, “Then was then, now is now”, is ultimately immature. Knowing and judging past events is the only way to build a meaningful future. Memory is necessary for growth.
Pope Francis
Faith and Reason are like two wings of the human spirit by which is soars to the truth.
John Paul II
A person is an entity of a sort to which the only proper and adequate way to relate is love.
John Paul II
The intellectual climate of the 1970s, for which the 1950s had already paved the way, contributed to this. A theory was even finally developed at that time that pedophilia should be viewed as something positive. Above all, however, the thesis was advocated-and this even infiltrated Catholic moral theology-that there was no such thing as something that is bad in itself. There were only things that were "relatively" bad. What was good or bad depended on the consequences. In such a context, where everything is relative and nothing intrinsically evil exists, but only relative good and relative evil, people who have an inclination to such behavior are left without no solid footing. Of course pedophilia is first rather a sickness of individuals, but the fact that it could become so active and so widespread was linked also to an intellectual climate through which the foundations of moral theology, good and evil, became open to question in the Church. Good and evil became interchangeable; they were no longer absolutely clear opposites.
Pope Benedict XVI
We make Idols of our concepts, but Wisdom is born of wonder
Pope Gregory I
Learning to think rigorously, so as to act rightly and to serve humanity better.
John Paul II
Freedom of choice makes it possible to plan our lives and to make the most of ourselves. Yet if this freedom lacks noble goals or personal discipline, it degenerates into an inability to give oneself generously to others.
Pope Francis
A person is an objective entity, which as a definite subject has the closest contacts with the whole (external) world and is most intimately involved with it precisely because of its inwardness, its interior life.
John Paul II
Out here in Amish. Smokin big doinks in Amish. Gang.
Pope Leo III
For the Church, the option for the poor is primarily a theological category rather than a cultural, sociological, political, or philosophical one. God shows the poor "his first mercy." This divine preference has consequences for the faith life of all Christians, because we are called to have "this mind...which was in Jesus Christ" (Phil. 2:5). Inspired by this, the Church has made an option for the poor, which is understood as a "special form of primacy in the exercise of Christian charity, to which the whole tradition of the Church bears witness." This option - as Benedict XVI has taught - "is implicit in our Christian faith in a God who became poor for us, so as to enrich us with his poverty." This is why I want a Church that is poor and for the poor. They have much to teach us. Not only do they share in the sensus fidei, but in their difficulties they know the suffering Christ. We need to let ourselves be evangelized by them. The new evangelization is an invitation to acknowledge the saving power at work in their lives and to put them at the center of the Church's pilgrim way. We are called to find Christ in them, to lend our voice to their causes, but also to be their friends, to listen to them, to speak for them, and to embrace the mysterious wisdom that God wishes to share with us through them.
Pope Francis
People are looking for someone to listen to them. Someone willing to grant them time, to listen to their dramas and difficulties. This is what I call the “apostolate of the ear,” and it is important. Very important. I feel compelled to say to confessors: talk, listen with patience, and above all tell people that God loves them.
Pope Francis
Will we let ourselves become a Church that calls and welcomes sinners with open arms, that gives courage and hope, or are we a Church closed in on herself? Are we a Church where the love of God dwells, where one cares for the other, where one prays for the other?A final question: what can I, a weak fragile sinner, do? God says to you, Do not be afraid of holiness; do not be afraid to aim high, to let yourself be loved and purified by God; do not be afraid to let yourself be guided by the Holy Spirit. Let us be infected by the holiness of God. Every Christian is called to sanctity...; and sanctity does not consist especially in doing extraordinary things, but in allowing God to act. It is the meeting of our weakness with the strength of his grace, it is saving faith in his action that allows us to live in charity, to do everything with joy and humility, for the glory of God and as a service to our neighbor.
Pope Francis
When freedom does not have a purpose, when it does not wish to know anything about the rule of law engraved in the hearts of men and women, when it does not listen to the voice of conscience, it turns against humanity and society.
John Paul II
This is one of the greatest challenges of our time: to convert ourselves to a type of development that knows how to respect creation.
Pope Francis
Italians come to ruin most generally in three ways - women gambling and farming. My family chose the slowest one.
Pope John
The capacity to accept suffering for the sake of goodness, truth and justice is an essential criterion of humanity, because if my own well-being and safety are ultimately more important than truth and justice, then the power of the stronger prevails, then violence and untruth reigns supreme.
Pope Benedict XVI
Treating a person as a means to an end, and an end moreover which in this case is pleasure, the maximization of pleasure, will always stand in the way of love.
John Paul II
Humility is the proper attitude towards all true greatness, including one's own greatness as a human being, but above all towards the greatness which is not oneself, which is beyond one's self
Karol Wojtyla
We know many among ourselves who have given themselves up to bonds, in order that they might ransom others. Many, too, have surrendered themselves to slavery, that with the price which they received for themselves, they might provide food for others.
Clement of Rome
No one else can want for me. No one can substitute his act of will for mine. It does sometimes happen that someone very much wants me to want what he wants. This is the moment when the impassable frontier between him and me, which is drawn by free will, becomes most obvious. I may not want that which he wants me to want - and in this precisely I am incommunicabilis. I am, and I must be, independent in my actions. All human relationships are posited on this fact.
John Paul II
The Christian should be characterized by an effort to see things in the best light; if it is true that the word Evangelos means good news, then Christian means happy man, spreader of happiness. 'Grim faces,' Saint Philip Neri used to say, 'are not made for the merry house of Paradise!
Pope John Paul I
A man had better study what a human being is, because he's marrying one - assuming that merely being one has not been sufficient stimulus to that study.
Pope Pius XI
We throw ourselves down, as Jesus did, before the mystery of God's power present to us, knowing that the Cross is the true burning bush, the place of the flame of God's love, which burns but does not destroy.
Pope Benedict XVI
Mary was able to turn a stable into a home for Jesus, with poor swaddling clothes and an abundance of love. She is the handmaid of the Father who sings his praises. She is the friend who is ever concerned that wine not be lacking in our lives. She is the woman whose heart was pierced by a sword and who understands all our pain.
Pope Francis
Grant unto us, Lord, that we may set our hope on Thy name…and open the eyes of our hearts, that wemay know Thee.”“We beseech Thee, Lord and Master, to be our help and succour. Save those among us who are intribulation; have mercy on the lowly; lift up the fallen; show Thyself to those in need; heal the sick; turnagain the wanderers of Thy people; feed the hungry; ransom our prisoners; raise up the weak; comfortthe faint-hearted. Let all nations know that Thou art God alone, and that Jesus Christ is Thy Son, andthat we are Thy people and the sheep of Thy pasture.”“We praise Thee who art able to do these and better things than these, through Jesus Christ the HighPriest and Guardian of our souls, through whom be glory and majesty to Thee, both now andthroughout all generations, for ever and ever. Amen.
Clement of Rome
To put it simply: the Holy Spirit bothers us. Because he moves us, he makes us walk, he pushes the Church to go forward. And we are like Peter at the Transfiguration: 'Ah, how wonderful it is to be here like this, all together!' ... But don't bother us. We want the Holy Spirit to doze off ... we want to domesticate the Holy Spirit. And that's no good. because he is God, he is that wind which comes and goes and you don't know where. He is the power of God, he is the one who gives us consolation and strength to move forward. But: to move forward! And this bothers us. It's so much nicer to be comfortable.
Pope Francis
We must therefore take account of this changeable nature of things and of human institutions and prepare for them with enlightened foresight.
Pope Pius XI
So Jesus in the throes of his Passion is an image of hope: God is on the side of those who suffer.
Pope Benedict XVI
Let us draw from the crib the joy and deep peace that Jesus comes to bring to the world.
Pope Francis
When the search for pleasure becomes obsessive, it holds us in thrall and keeps us from experiencing other satisfactions. Joy, on the other hand, increases our pleasure and helps us find fulfilment in any number of things, even at those times of life when physical pleasure has ebbed.
Pope Francis
God allows man to learn His supernatural ends, but the decision to strive towards an end, the choice of course, is left to man's free will. God does not redeem man against his will.
John Paul II
There is no dignity when the human dimension is eliminated from the person. In short, the problem with pornography is not that it shows too much of the person, but that it shows far too little.
John Paul II
The liturgy is the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed; at the same time it is the font from which all her power flows. For the aim and object of apostolic works is that all who are made sons of God by faith and baptism should come together to praise God in the midst of His Church, to take part in the sacrifice, and to eat the Lord's supper.
Pope Paul VI
Thus [the altar] brings heaven into the community assembled on earth, or rather it takes the community beyond itself into the communion of saints of all times and places. We might put it this way: the altar is the place where heaven is opened up.
Pope Benedict XVI
None can sense more deeply than you artists, ingenious creators of beauty that you are, something of the pathos with which God at the dawn of creation looked upon the work of his hands.
John Paul II
The love, loyalty, and dedication of Mary and Joseph are an example for all Christian couples, who are neither the friends nor masters of their children’s lives, but the guardians of this incomparable gift from God.
Pope Benedict XVI
Sin is more than a stain. Sin is a wound; it needs to be treated, healed. The place where my encounter with the mercy of Jesus takes place is my sin.
Pope Francis
The ethos of redemption is realied in self-mastery, by means of temperance, that is, continence of desires.
John Paul II
Purity of heart is what enables us to see.
Pope Benedict XVI
Beauty, then, is not mere decoration, but rather an essential element of the liturgical action, since it is an attribute of God himself and his revelation. These considerations should make us realize the care which is needed, if the liturgical action is to reflect its innate splendour.
Pope Benedict XVI
It must not be forgotten that reason too needs to be sustained in all its searching by trusting dialogue and sincere friendship. A climate of suspicion and distrust, which can beset speculative research, ignores the teaching of the ancient philosophers who proposed friendship as one of the most appropriate contexts for sound philosophical enquiry.
John Paul II
Jesus assumes, as it were, the fall of man, lets himself into man's fallenness, prays to the Father out of the lowest depths of human dereliction and anguish. He lays his will in the will of the Father's: "Not my will but yours be done." He lays the human will in the divine. He takes up all the hesitation of the human will and endures it. It is this very conforming of the human will to the divine that is the heart of redemption.
Pope Benedict XVI
The earth will not continue to offer its harvest, except with faithful stewardship. We cannot say we love the land and then take steps to destroy it for use by future generations.
John Paul II
The Church acknowledges Gregorian chant as specially suited to the Roman liturgy: therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services. But other kinds of sacred music, especially polyphony, are by no means excluded from liturgical celebrations, so long as they accord with the spirit of the liturgical action.
Pope Paul VI
Know what you are talking about.
John Paul II
Friendship, as has been said, consists in a full commitment of the will to another person with a view to that person's good.
John Paul II
True freedom is not advanced in the permissive society, which confuses freedom with license to do anything whatever and which in the name of freedom proclaims a kind of general amorality. It is a caricature of freedom to claim that people are free to organize their lives with no reference to moral values, and to say that society does not have to ensure the protection and advancement of ethical values. Such an attitude is destructive of freedom and peace.
John Paul II
They call it "young music"; I see, however, that the record industry makes millions by the carload for shrewd older people! They invoke the name of spontaneity, nonconformity and originality; actually, canny "clothing industrialists" manipulate the field, undisturbed sovereigns! They call themselves revolutionaries, but the overscrupulous attentions devoted to their hair and their dress risk creating merely effeminates.
Pope John Paul I
Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song.
John Paul II
No one presumes to teach an art that he has not first mastered through study. How foolish therefore for the inexperienced to assume pastoral authority when the care of souls is the art of arts.
St. Gregory Dialogos
The great question that will be with us throughout this entire book: What did Jesus actually bring, if not world peace, universal prosperity, and a better world? What has he brought?The answer is very simple: God.... He has brought God, and now we know his face, now we can call upon him. Now we know the path that we human beings have to take in this world. Jesus has brought God and with God the truth about our origin and destiny: faith, hope and love. It is only because of our hardness of heart that we think this is too little. Yes indeed, God's power works quietly in this world, but it is the true and the lasting power. Again and again, God's cause seems to be in its death throes. Yet over and over again it proves to be the thing that truly endures and saves.
Pope Benedict XVI
God makes Himself felt in the heart of each person. He also respects the culture of all people...God is open to all people. He calls everyone. He moves everyone to seek Him and to discover Him through creation.
Pope Francis
God is our Father and loves us, even when his silence remains incomprehensible.
Pope Benedict XVI