Top 1404 Quotes & Sayings by Pope Francis - Page 6

You can't have Christ without the Church.

Wars are always madness: all is lost in war, all is to be gained in peace.

What God cares about most is that we are His friends.

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.

Our world is facing a refugee crisis of a magnitude not seen since the Second World War. This presents us with great challenges and many hard decisions.

In these times of suffering prayer is of even more help.

The one thing that the Catholic Church desires, and that I seek as Bishop of Rome, “the Church which presides in charity”, is communion with the Orthodox Churches.

Dear young people, let us not be satisfied with a mediocre life. Be amazed by what is true and beautiful, what is of God!

Whenever our interior life becomes caught up in its own interests and concerns, there is no longer room for others, no place for the poor.

Our life must be centred on what is essential, on Jesus Christ. Everything else is secondary.

One day we will see our animals again in eternity of Christ. Paradise is open to all God’s creatures.

Filipinos everywhere are known for their love of God, their fervent piety and their warm devotion to Our Lady and her rosary

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.

It is not possible to go backwards. We must go forward. Always forward.

The Lord is always there waiting to give us his love: it is an amazing thing, one which never ceases to surprise us!

Gay marriage will destroy the family

Reforming the social structures which perpetuate poverty and the exclusion of the poor first requires a conversion of mind and heart.

If someone is gay and is searching for the Lord and has good will, then who am I to judge him? ... The problem is not having this tendency, no, we must be brothers and sisters to one another. The problem is in making a lobby of this tendency: a lobby of misers, a lobby of politicians, a lobby of masons, so many lobbies.

Vocations are born in prayer and from prayer; and only in prayer can they persevere and bear fruit.

Breathing is made up of two stages: inhaling, the intake of air, and exhaling, the letting out of air. The spiritual life is fed, nourished, by prayer and is expressed outwardly through mission: inhaling and exhaling. When we inhale, by prayer, we receive the fresh air of the Holy Spirit.

Don’t be afraid to ask God for forgiveness. He never tires of forgiving us. God is pure mercy.

A society which abandons children and the elderly severs its roots and darkens its future.

You can't govern without loving the people and without humility!

Advent is a journey towards Bethlehem. May we let ourselves be drawn by the light of God made man.

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.

Our infinite sadness can only be cured by an infinite love.

Holy Week is a privileged time when we are called to draw near to Jesus: friendship with him is shown in times of difficulty.

Religious life ought to promote growth in the Church by way of attraction. The Church must be attractive. Wake up the world! Be witnesses of a different way of doing things, of acting, of living! It is possible to live differently in this world.

The Church is called to draw near to every person, beginning with the poorest and those who suffer.

Each individual Christian and every community is called to be an instrument of God for the liberation and promotion of the poor.

Dear young people, don't be afraid to marry. A faithful and fruitful marriage will bring you happiness.

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.

Dear young people, you have many plans and dreams for the future. But, is Christ at the center of each of your plans and dreams?

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.

The right to life is the first among human rights.

Evolution in nature is not opposed to the notion of Creation, because evolution presupposes the creation of beings that evolve.

And with a little sense of humor we can say that there are Christian bats who prefer the shadows to the light of the presence of the Lord.

Lent comes providentially to reawaken us, to shake us from our lethargy.

An evangelizer must never look like someone who has just come back from a funeral.

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.

It's best to not confuse optimism with hope. Optimism is a psychological attitude toward life. Hope goes further. It is an anchor that one hurls toward the future, it's what lets you pull on the line and reach what you're aiming for and head in the right direction. Hope is also theological: God is there, too.

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.

Children are to be welcomed, cherished, protected.

Abortion is not the lesser of two evils. It is a crime. It is to throw someone out in order to save another.

Jesus understands our weaknesses and sins; and he forgives us if we allow ourselves to be forgiven.

Francis of Assisi tells us we should work to build peace. But there is no true peace without truth! There cannot be true peace if everyone is his own criterion, if everyone can always claim exclusively his own rights, without at the same time caring for the good of others, of everyone, on the basis of the nature that unites every human being on this earth.

Our efforts must aim at restoring hope, righting wrongs, maintaining commitments, and thus promoting the well-being of individuals and of peoples.

Drug addiction is an evil, and with evil there can be no yielding or compromise.

Environmental degradation is one of the biggest challenges we have. I think a question that we're not asking ourselves is: 'Isn't humanity committing suicide with this indiscriminate and tyrannical use of nature?'

It is now, more than ever, necessary that political leaders be outstanding for honesty, integrity and commitment to the common good.

Today too, as at her origins, the Church... cries out:“Veni, Sancte Spiritus! Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful, and kindle in them the fire of your love!” Amen.

Only by becoming poor ourselves, by stripping away our complacency, will we be able to identify with the least of our brothers and sisters.

China is a great nation that offers the world a great culture, so many good things. I love the Chinese people and I hope there is the possibility of having good relations. We're in contact, we talk, we are moving forward but for me, to have as a friend a great country like China, which has so much culture and has so much opportunity to do good, would be a joy.

We also must learn to listen more to our conscience. Be careful, however: this does not mean we ought to follow our ego, do whatever interests us, whatever suits us, whatever pleases us. That is not conscience.

Mercy is the very foundation of the Church's life...The Church's very credibility is seen in how she shows merciful and compassionate love...Mercy is the force that reawakens us to new life and instills in us the courage to look to the future with hope.

Where there is calumny, there is Satan himself.

Let us allow God to fill our hearts with his goodness and mercy.

If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge him? The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains this very well. It says they should not be marginalized because of this (orientation) but that they must be integrated into society. The problem is not having this orientation. We must be brothers.

Today, there are those who say that marriage is out of fashion... They say that it is not worth making a life-long commitment, making a definitive decision, ‘for ever’, because we do not know what tomorrow will bring. I ask you, instead, to be revolutionaries, I ask you to swim against the tide; yes, I am asking you to rebel against this culture that sees everything as temporary and that ultimately believes you are incapable of responsibility, that believes you are incapable of true love.

We all need to improve, to change for the better. Lent helps us fight against our faults.