Pope Francis Quotes

I would like that all of us, after these days of grace, might have the courage - the courage - to walk in the presence of the Lord, with the Cross of the Lord: to build the Church on the Blood of the Lord, which is shed on the Cross, and to profess the one glory, Christ Crucified. In this way, the Church will go forward.

Lord, with so much violence in Iraq, may we persevere in our prayer and generosity.

Every Catholic parliamentarian must vote according their well-formed conscience. I would say just this. I believe it is sufficient because - I say well-formed because it is not the conscience of 'what seems to me.'

We are all jars of clay, fragile and poor, yet we carry within us an immense treasure.

When I was a seminarian, I was dazzled by a girl I met at an uncle’s wedding. I was surprised by her beauty, her intellectual brilliance… and, well, I was bowled over for quite a while.

The Lord never tires of forgiving. It is we who tire of asking for forgiveness.

Not so much anymore but some years ago in my homeland there was a habit, something called 'casamiento de apuro,' a marriage in haste because the baby is coming and to cover socially the honor of the family. There, they weren't free and it happened many times this marriage is null. As a bishop I forbade my priests to do this.

There's only a very small representation of girls among you. Too little. Women have much to tell us in today’s society. Sometimes we are too machistas and we don't allow enough space to women. But women can see things from a different angle to us, with a different eye. Women are able to pose questions we men are unable to understand. Look out for this fact: she is the only one who has put a question for which there is no answer. She couldn't put it into words but expressed it with tears.

That is why the center of our faith isn't just a book, but a history of Salvation, and above all, it's about a person: Jesus Christ, the Word of God made flesh.

Let Christ turn your natural optimism into Christian hope, your energy into moral virtue, your good will into genuine self-sacrificin g love! This is the path you are called to take. This is the path to overcoming all that threatens hope, virtue and love in your lives and in your culture. In this way your youth will be a gift to Jesus and to the world.

There is another important point: encountering the poor. If we step outside ourselves we find poverty. Today-it sickens the heart to say so-the discovery of a tramp who has died of the cold is not news. Today what counts as news is, maybe, a scandal. A scandal: ah, that is news! Today, the thought that a great many children do not have food to eat is not news. This is serious, this is serious! We cannot put up with this! Yet that is how things are. We cannot become starched Christians, those over-educated Christians who speak of theological matters as they calmly sip their tea.

Let's pray for whole world that there be brotherhood. I hope this journey of the church we begin today is fruitful for evangelization.

Every time we give in to selfishness and say “No” to God, we spoil his loving plan for us.

I will be praying with my best wishes that the Orthodox move ahead because they are brothers and their bishops are bishops like us.

If the Christian is a restorationist, a legalist, if he wants everything clear and safe, then he will find nothing. Tradition and memory of the past must help us to have the courage to open up new areas to God.

If we live according to the law "an eye for an eye...," we will never escape from the spiral of evil.

Faith is not a light which scatters all our darkness, but a lamp which guides our steps in the night and suffices for the journey.

As long as the problems of the poor are not radically resolved by rejecting the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation and by attacking the structural causes of inequality, no solution will be found for the world’s problems or, for that matter, to any problems.

Because ALWAYS, even in the darkest moments, in moments of sin, in moments of weakness, in moments of failure, I have seen Jesus, and I trusted Him... He has not left me alone.

When we meet a person truly in need, do we see the face of God?

The Church, in her wisdom, maintains the distinction between engaged and married couples -- they are not the same, today's culture and society have become rather indifferent to the delicate and serious nature of this passage.

Charity that does not change the situation of the poor isn't enough.

Let Jesus preach to you, and and let Jesus heal you. We are all wounded. Everyone.

Idolatry, then, is always polytheism, an aimless passing from one lord to another. Idolatry does not offer a journey but rather a plethora of paths leading nowhere and forming a vast labyrinth.

We now live in a culture of the temporary, in which more and more people are simply giving up on marriage as a public commitment.

Money at the service of life can be managed in the right way by cooperatives, on condition that it is a real cooperative where capital does not have command over men but men over capital.

Let us always pray for one another.

When I had to say something that I didn't like to Turkey, but of which I was sure, I said it, with the consequences that you all know [Editor's note: a reference to his comments on the Armenian Genocide]. I said these words ... I was sure

It is the attitude of some leaders of God's people; they continually scold others, hurl reproaches at them, tell them to be quiet. ... 'Madam, take your crying child out of the church as I am preaching.' As if the cries of a child were not a sublime homily.

Integrating in the Church doesn't mean receiving communion.

A credible witness to truth and to the values of the Gospel is urgently needed.

Human beings are themselves considered consumer goods to be used and then discarded. We have created a “disposable” culture which is now spreading. It is no longer simply about exploitation and oppression, but something new. Exclusion ultimately has to do with what it means to be a part of the society in which we live; those excluded are no longer society’s underside or its fringes or its disenfranchised – they are no longer even a part of it. The excluded are not the “exploited” but the outcast, the “leftovers”.

Since many of you do not belong to the Catholic Church and others are non-believers, from the bottom of my heart I give this silent blessing to each and every one of you, respecting the conscience of each one of you but knowing that each one of you is a child of God.

May we always care for our children, not counting the cost, so that they may never believe themselves to be mistakes, but always know their infinite worth.

We must not believe the Evil One when he tells us that there is nothing we can do in the face of violence, injustice and sin.

While new rights are attributed to or indeed almost presumed by the individual, life is not always protected as the primary value and the primordial right of every human being. The ultimate aim of medicine remains the defence and promotion of life.

A fundamental role in the renewal of society is played, of course, by the family and especially by young people.

The laity are called to become a leaven of Christian living within society.

Every Christian can witness to God in the workplace, not only with words, but above all with an honest life.

I think the church has to apologize not only to the gay person it has offended, but also to the poor, to women who are exploited, to children forced into labor and for having blessed so many weapons in the past.

How many Christians live for appearances? Their life seems like a soap bubble. The soap bubble is beautiful, with all its colours! But it lasts only a second, and then what?

Some people believe that - pardon my language - in order to be good Catholics, we should be like rabbits. No.

The Philippines bear witness to the youthfulness and vitality of the Church.

Dear brothers and sisters, the Church loves you! Be an active presence in the community, as living cells, as living stones.

Division within a Christian community is a very grave sin; it is the work of the devil.

If someone is gay and seeks the Lord with good will, who am I to judge?

Sometimes we are tempted to be that kind of Christian who keeps the Lord’s wounds at arm’s length. Yet Jesus wants us to touch human misery, to touch the suffering flesh of others. He hopes that we will stop looking for those personal or communal niches which shelter us from the maelstrom of human misfortune and instead enter into the reality of other people’s lives and know the power of tenderness. Whenever we do so, our lives become wonderfully complicated and we experience intensely what it is to be a people, to be part of a people.

Among our tasks as witnesses to the love of Christ is that of giving a voice to the cry of the poor.