Quotes by Pope Francis (Page 2 of 3)
Yes, hypothetically, western Catholicism could revise the theme of celibacy. ... But for the moment, I am in favor of maintaining celibacy, with the pros and the cons it has, because we have ten centuries of more good experiences than bad ones.
The Internet offers immense possibilities for encounter and solidarity. This is something truly good, a gift from God.
Every Christian is a missionary to the extent that he or she bears witness to God's love. Be missionaries of God's tenderness!
I would like to ask all those who have positions of responsibility in economic, political and social life, and all men and women of goodwill: let us be 'protectors' of creation, protectors of God's plan inscribed in nature, protectors of one another and of the environment.
The family is the greatest treasure of any country. Let us all work to protect and strengthen this, the cornerstone of society.
The Sacraments are Jesus Christ's presence in us. So it is important for us to go to Confession and receive Holy Communion.
Human trafficking is a crime against humanity. We must unite our efforts to free the victims and stop this increasingly aggressive crime which threatens not only individuals but the basic values of society.
Human trafficking is an open wound on the body of contemporary society, a scourge upon the body of Christ. It is a crime against humanity.
Human trafficking is a scourge, a crime against the whole of humanity. It is time to join forces and work together to free its victims and to eradicate this crime that affects all of us, from individual families to the worldwide community.
When Jesus stepped into the waters of the Jordan and was baptized by John the Baptist, he did so not because he was in need of repentance, or conversion: he did it to be among people who need forgiveness, among us sinners, and to take upon himself the burden of our sins.
Dear young people, Jesus wants to be your friend, and wants you to spread the joy of this friendship everywhere.
Each individual Christian and every community is called to be an instrument of God for the liberation and promotion of the poor.
Let us not have a computer psychology that makes us think we know it all. All answers on computers -- but no surprises. The challenge of love. God reveals himself through surprises.
Do not lose hope; St. Joseph also experienced moments of difficulty, but he never lost faith and was able to overcome them, in the certainty that God never abandons us.
To protect creation, to protect every man and every woman, to look upon them with tenderness and love is to open up a horizon of hope.
The time has come for the Church to take up the joyful call to mercy once more. It is time to return to the basics and to bear the weaknesses and struggles of our brothers and sisters. Mercy is the force that reawakens us to new life and instils in us the courage to look to the future with hope.
Needing to talk badly about others indicates low self esteem. That means, 'I feel so low that instead of picking myself up, I have to cut others down.' Letting go of negative things quickly is healthy.
Don't confuse the evil of avoiding pregnancy by itself, with abortion. Abortion is not a theological problem, it is a human problem, it is a medical problem. You kill one person to save another, in the best case scenario.
Let us pray that the Church be holier and more humble, loving God by serving the poor, the lonely and the sick.
Jesus receives us with all of our limitations, He bring us the mercy of the Father who forgives us, and transforms our heart, rendering it a new heart, capable of loving Him, who loved His own to the end (cf. John 13:1). And this love is manifested in his mercy. Jesus always forgives us.
The blood of our Christian brothers is a witness that cries out..If they are Catholic, Orthodox, Copts, Lutherans, it is not important : They are Christians. The blood is the same: It is the blood which confesses Christ.
Miracles happen. But prayer is needed! Prayer that is courageous, struggling and persevering, not prayer that is a mere formality.
Christmas celebrations are often full of sound. It would be good for us to make room for silence, to hear the voice of Love.
We cannot become starched Christians, too polite, who speak of theology calmly over tea. We have to become courageous Christians and seek out those (who need help most).
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 do not adore God, we adore something else. Money and power are false idols which often take the place of God.
I will be praying with my best wishes that the Orthodox move ahead because they are brothers and their bishops are bishops like us.
It is no easy task to overcome the bitter legacy of injustices, hostility and mistrust left by the conflict. It can only be done by overcoming evil with good.
We ask for peace and freedom for the many men and women subject to old and new forms of enslavement on the part of criminal individuals and groups.
Every threat to the family is a threat to society itself. So protect your families! See in them your country's greatest treasure and nourish them always by prayer and the grace of the sacraments.
We cannot be Christians part-time. If Christ is at the center of our lives, he is present in all that we do.
Once man has lost the fundamental orientation which unifies his existence, he breaks down into the multiplicity of his desires; in refusing to await the time of promise, his life-story disintegrates into a myriad of unconnected instants.
God calls you to make definitive choices, and He has a plan for each of you: to discover that plan and to respond to your vocation is to move toward personal fulfillment.
Are our lives truly filled with the presence of God? How many things take the place of God in my life each day?
The economic part is the one that came out first because there were some problems about which the press spoke a lot.
As Christians, we have an additional reason to love and serve the poor; for in them we see the face and the flesh of Christ, who made himself poor so to enrich us with his poverty.
Today, in Mexico, they speak 65 languages, counting the indigenous languages, 65. It is a people of great faith. They have also suffered religious persecution.
Dear young people, please, don't be observers of life, but get involved. Jesus did not remain an observer, but he immersed himself. Don't be observers, but immerse yourself in the reality of life, as Jesus did.
Joy adapts and changes, but it always endures,
even as a flicker of light born of our personal certainty that,
when everything is said and done, we are infinitely loved.
Small yet strong in the love of God, like Saint Francis of Assisi, all of us, as Christians, are called to watch over
and protect the fragile world in which we live, and all its peoples.
To use a telling phrase of the Reverend Martin Luther King, we can say that we have defaulted on a promissory note and now is the time to honor it.
If we are to know the Lord, we must go to Him. Listen to Him in silence before the Tabernacle and approach Him in the Sacraments.
No one must use the name of God to commit violence. To kill in the name of God is a grave sacrilege. To discriminate in the name of God is inhuman.
A friendship with a woman is not a sin. (It's) a friendship. A romantic relationship with a woman who is not your wife, that is a sin.
Christian love is loving without counting the cost. This is the lesson of the Good Samaritan; this is the lesson of Jesus.
If we see someone who needs help, do we stop? There is so much suffering and poverty, and a great need for good Samaritans.
The Gospel teaches us what Jesus' kingdom requires of us... Reminds us that closeness and tenderness are the rules of life.
The search for God means having the courage to set out on a risky path, it means following our restless hearts.
I join the March for Life in Washington with my prayers. May God help us respect all life, especially the most vulnerable.
When we are generous in welcoming people and sharing something with them-some food, a place in our homes, our time-not only do we no longer remain poor: we are enriched.
When evangelizers rise from prayer, their hearts are more open; freed of self-absorption, they are desirous of doing good and sharing their lives with others.
Reforming the social structures which perpetuate poverty and the exclusion of the poor first requires a conversion of mind and heart.
Rest is so necessary for the health of our minds and bodies, and often so difficult to achieve due to the many demands placed on us. But rest is also essential for our spiritual health, so that we can hear God's voice and understand what he asks of us.
The scourge of drug trafficking, that favors violence and sows the seeds of suffering and death, requires of society as a whole an act of courage.
Everyone is called, everyone is sent out… The call of God can reach us on the assembly line and in the office, in the supermarket and in the stairwell, i.e., in the places of everyday life.
The youth say stupid things and they say good things, as we do, as everyone does. But hear them, speak with them, because we must learn from them and they must learn from me, from us.
Today everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless. As a consequence, masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape.
When we read about Creation in Genesis, we run the risk of imagining God was a magician, with a magic wand able to do everything. But that is not so. He created human beings and let them develop according to the internal laws that he gave to each one so they would reach their fulfillment.
At times we can be self-absorbed. Lord, help us to open our hearts to others and to serve those who are most vulnerable.
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.'
True charity requires courage: Let us overcome the fear of getting our hands dirty so as to help those in need.
It means protecting people, showing loving concern for each and every person, especially children, the elderly, those in need, who are often the last we think about.
It's important if you can do good with power. And Jesus defined power, true power is to serve, to do service, to do the most humble services, and I must still make progress on this path of service because I feel that I don't do everything I should do. That's the sense I have of power.
Certain realities in life are only seen through eyes that are cleansed through our tears. Let us learn how to weep.
I have come that they may have life and have it in abundance, says Jesus. This is where true wealth is found, not in material things!
Today Saint Paul has told us that in Christ we have become God's adopted children, brothers and sisters in Christ. This is who we are. This is our identity.
Open your hearts to the Lord. The Lord is waiting for you and the Church will welcome you if your willingness to serve good is as clear and public as your choice to serve evil was.
Dear young people, the Church expects great things of you and your generosity. Don't be afraid to aim high.
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.
If we want security, let us give security; if we want life, let us give life; if we want opportunities, let us provide opportunities. The yardstick we use for others will be the yardstick which time will use for us.
Dear young friends, learn to pray every day: this is the way to know Jesus and invite him into your lives.
When we don't preach the LORD, we preach the Devil, and when we preach worldliness, we preach the Devil.
When we do not profess Jesus Christ, we profess the worldliness of the devil, a demonic worldliness.
There is a danger that threatens everyone in the church, all of us. The danger of worldliness. It leads us to vanity, arrogance and pride.
We ask ourselves and each of us may wonder: Does the Lord feel truly at home in my life? Do we allow him to do a 'cleansing' in our hearts and to drive out the idols, those attitudes of greed, jealousy, worldliness, envy and hatred, that habit of gossiping and tearing down others?
The Holy Spirit is a great worker, not a 'trade unionist.' He is a great worker, and He works in us, always. He does this work of explaining the mystery of Jesus, and of giving us this sense of Christ.
In the face of so many wounds that hurt us and could lead to a hardness of heart, we are called to dive into the sea of prayer, which is the sea of the boundless love of God, in order to experience his tenderness.
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.
I don't know if human activity is the only cause, but mostly, in great part, it is man who has slapped nature in the face, we have in a sense taken over nature.
How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points? This is a case of exclusion.
At stake are the lives of many children who will be discriminated against in advance, and deprived of their human development given by a father and a mother and willed by God. At stake is the total rejection of God's law engraved in our hearts.
May no one use religion as a pretext for actions against human dignity and against the fundamental rights of every man and woman.
In a world like this, media can help us to feel closer to one another, creating a sense of unity of the human family which can in turn inspire solidarity and serious efforts to ensure a more dignified life for all.
No one is saved alone, as an isolated individual, but God attracts us looking at the complex web of relationships that take place in the human community. God enters into this dynamic, this participation in the web of human relationships.
Leaders of the Church have often been Narcissus, flattered and sickeningly excited by their courtiers. The court is the leprosy of the papacy.
The imposition of anomalous models and lifestyles are alien to people's identity and, in the end, are irresponsible.
The mystery of the Cross, a mystery of
love, can only be understood in prayer.
Pray and weep, kneeling before the
Cross.
The Lord is knocking at the door of our hearts. Have we put a sign on the door saying: 'Do not disturb?'
In this quest to seek and find God in all things, there is still an area of uncertainty. There must be. If a person says that he met God with total certainty and is not touched by a margin of uncertainty, then this is not good.
We are called to be 'ambassadors for Christ' (2 Cor 5:20). Ours is a ministry of reconciliation ... To be an ambassador for Christ means above all to invite everyone to a renewed personal encounter with the Lord Jesus.
The Pope is a man. The Pope needs the input of women, too. And the Pope, too, has a heart that can have a healthy, holy friendship with a woman.
Let us pray to the Lord and ask him to protect the family in the crisis with which the devil wants to destroy it. Families are the domestic church where Jesus grows in the love of a married couple, in the lives of their children.
Jesuits make a vow of obedience to the Pope. But if the Pope is a Jesuit, perhaps he has to make a vow of obedience to the General of the Jesuits! I don't know how to resolve this … I feel a Jesuit in my spirituality; in the spirituality of the Exercises, the spirituality deep in my heart.
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.
The culture of comfort, which makes us think only of ourselves, makes us insensitive to the cries of other people.
The whole journey of life is a journey of preparation... to see, to feel, to understand the beauty of what lies ahead, of the homeland towards which we walk.
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.
How marvellous it would be if, at the end of the day, each of us could say: today I have performed an act of charity towards others!
I think of the difficulties which, in various countries, today afflicts the world of work and business; I think of how many, and not just young people, are unemployed, many times due to a purely economic conception of society, which seeks selfish profit, beyond the parameters of social justice.
We pray for the many brothers and sisters who seek refuge far from their native lands, who seek a home where they can live without fear: that they might always be respected in their dignity.
A man who does not know how to have a relationship of friendship with a woman -- I'm not talking about misogynists, who are sick -- well, he's a man who is missing something.
On the ordination of women, the church has spoken and said no. John Paul II, in a definitive formulation said that door is closed.
There are people who are afraid to go to confession, forgetting that they will not encounter a severe judge there, but the immensely merciful Father.
Whenever we take a step towards Jesus, we come to realize that he is already there, waiting for us with open arms.
To the criminals and all their accomplices, I, today, humbly and as a brother, repeat: convert yourselves to love and justice. It is possible to return to honesty. The tears of the mothers of Naples are asking this of you.
In effect, a selfish and boundless thirst for power and material prosperity leads both to the misuse of available natural resources and to the exclusion of the weak and the disadvantaged.
Working for a just distribution of the fruits of the earth and human labor is not mere philanthropy. It is a moral obligation.
The family remains the basic unit of society and the first school in which children learn the human, spiritual and moral values which enable them to be a beacon of goodness, integrity and justice in our communities.
Joy cannot be held at heel: it must be let go. Joy is a pilgrim virtue. It is a gift that walks, walks on the path of life, that walks with Jesus: preaching, proclaiming Jesus, proclaiming joy, lengthens and widens that path.
The parish is the presence of the Church in any given territory, an environment for hearing God's word, for growth in Christian life, for dialogue, proclamation, charitable outreach, worship and celebration.
Are we capable of bringing the word of God into the environment in which we live? Do we know how to speak of Christ, of what he represents for us, in our families, among the people who form part of our daily lives? Faith is born from listening, and is strengthened by proclamation.
Every economic...acti on must set about providing each inhabitant of the planet with the minimum wherewithal to live in dignity and freedom, with the possibility of supporting a family, educating children, praising God and developing one's own human potential.
Let us ask the Lord for this grace: that our hearts become free and filled with light, so that we can rejoice as children of God.
