Pope Catholic Quotes & Sayings

As local priests came to dine at the Walsh manor, Tyndale witnessed firsthand the appalling biblical ignorance of the Roman church. During one meal, he found himself in a heated debate with a Catholic clergyman. The priest asserted, "We had better be without God's law than the pope's."15 Tyndale boldly responded, "I defy the pope and all his laws." He then added that "if God spared him life, ere many years he would cause a boy that drives the plough to know more of the Scripture than he does."16 — Steven J. Lawson

How many times do we hear: 'Come on, you Christians, be a little bit more normal, like other people, be reasonable!' This is real snake charmer's talk: 'Come on, just be like this, okay? A little bit more normal, don't be so rigid ... ' But behind it is this: 'Don't come here with your stories, that God became man!' The Incarnation of the Word, that is the scandal behind all of this! We can do all the social work we want, and they will say: 'How great the Church is, it does such good social work. But if we say that we are doing it because those people are the flesh of Christ, then comes the scandal. And that is the truth, that is the revelation of Jesus: that presence of Jesus incarnate. — Pope Francis

A generation of permanent cripples, failed seekers, who never understood the essential old-mystic fallacy of the Acid Culture: the desperate assumption that somebody - or at least some force - is tending that Light at the end of the tunnel. This is the same cruel and paradoxically benevolent bullshit that has kept the Catholic Church going for so many centuries. It is also the military ethic ... a blind faith in some higher and wiser "authority." The Pope, The General, The Prime Minister ... all the way up to "God. — Hunter S. Thompson

I have neither permitted, nor shall I permit, the things which have been settled by the holy fathers to be violated by any innovation. — Pope Leo I

No one can be, at the same time, a sincere Catholic and a true Socialist. — Pope Pius XI

Please receive in the name of the Spanish government and the people of Spain our warmest congratulations for your election as Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church and my best wishes for the Papacy which you begin today. [to Pope Benedict XVI] — Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero

It is impossible to approve in Catholic publications of a style inspired by unsound novelty which seems to deride the piety of the faithful and dwells on the introduction of a new order of Christian life, on new directions of the Church, on new aspirations of the modern soul, on a new vocation of the clergy, on a new Christian civilisation. — Pope Pius X

In the Western Church to which I belong, priests cannot be married as in the Byzantine, Ukrainian, Russian or Greek Catholic Churches. In those churches, the priests can be married, but the bishops have to be celibate. They are very good priests. — Pope Francis

The fact that President-elect Kennedy would be the first Catholic president did not sit well with many Americans. There was a fear that, as president, Kennedy's decisions would be based on his religion and dictated by the pope. — Clint Hill

Because of its divine institution for the propagation of man, the seed is not to be vainly ejaculated, nor is it to be damaged, nor is it to be wasted. — Pope Clement I

[Martin] Luther was a kind, warm-hearted man. But he attacked anyone he felt was an enemy of Christ. The worst side of him was expressed in his attacks on Jews. He also attacked Turks, who were Muslims, Catholic followers of the Pope, and even other groups of Protestants. These attacks became more and more violent as he grew older. — Michael A. Mullett

This Apostolic Church never turned from the way of truth nor held any kind of error. It is imperative that nothing of the truths which have been defined be lessened, nothing altered, nothing added, but that they be preserved intact in word and meaning. This is the true rule of faith. — Pope Agatho

We are impatient, anxious to see the whole picture, but God lets us see things slowly, quietly. — Pope Francis

62. It is neither wise nor laudable to reduce everything to antiquity by every possible device. Thus, to cite some instances, one would be straying from the straight path were he to wish the altar restored to its primitive table form; were he to want black excluded as a color for the liturgical vestments; were he to forbid the use of sacred images and statues in Churches; were he to order the crucifixes designed that the Divine Redeemer's Body shows no trace of His cruel sufferings; lastly were he to disdain and reject polyphonic music or singing in parts, even where it conforms to regulations issued by the Holy See. — Pope Pius XII

well-meaning Christians almost killed the faith eight hundred years ago — Jon M. Sweeney

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. — Pope Francis

Although it is a bit of a caricature, I think that there is some truth in the generalizations I'm about to make. The tendency in Roman Catholic theology is to view the kingdom of Christ as a cosmic ladder or tower, leading from the lowest strata to the hierarchy led by the pope. Anabaptists have tended to see the kingdom more as a monastery, a community of true saints called out of the world and a worldly church. Lutheran and Reformed churches tend sometimes to see the kingdom as a school, while evangelicals (at least in the United States) lean more toward seeing it as a market. — Michael S. Horton

I accept with sincere belief the doctrine of faith as handed down to us from the Apostles by the orthodox Fathers, always in the same sense and with the same interpretation. — Pope Pius X

Catholics can in no way convince themselves that so enormous and unjust an in equality in the distribution of this world's goods truly conforms to the designs of the all-wise Creator. — Pope Pius XI

Let nothing novel be introduced! — Pope Pius XII

I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish; where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials; and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all. — John F. Kennedy

Now you know well that the most deadly foes of the Catholic religion have always waged a fierce war, but without success, against this Chair [of St. Peter]; they are by no means ignorant of the fact that religion itself can never totter and fall while this Chair remains intact, the Chair which rests on the rock which the proud gates of hell cannot overthrow and in which there is the whole and perfect solidity of the Christian religion. — Pope Pius IX

Liberal Catholics are the worst enemies of the Church. — Pope Pius IX

These enemies of divine revelation extol human progress to the skies, and with rash and sacrilegious daring would have it introduced into the Catholic religion as if this religion were not the work of God but of man, or some kind of philosophical discovery susceptible of perfection by human efforts. — Pope Pius IX

The true friends of the people are neither revolutionaries, nor innovators, but traditionalists. — Pope Pius X

God once spoke through the mouth of an ass. I will tell you straight what I think. I am a Christian theologian and I am bound not only to assert, but to defend the truth with my blood and death. I want to believe freely and be a slave to the authority of no one, of a council, a university, or pope. I will confidently confess what appears to me to be true whether it has been asserted by a Catholic or a heretic, whether it has been approved or reproved by a council." - Martin Luther (book: "Here I Stand") — Martin Luther

There is but one way in which the unity of Christians may be fostered, and that is by furthering the return to the one true Church of Christ of those who are separated from it; for far from that one true Church they have in the past fallen away. The one Church of Christ is visible to all, and will remain, according to the will of its Author, exactly the same as He instituted it. — Pope Pius XI

Not all Muslims are violent, not all Catholics are violent. It is like a fruit salad; there's everything. There are violent persons of this religion. — Pope Francis

Let us remember Paul VI's words: "For the Catholic Church, no one is a stranger, no one is excluded, no one is far away" (Homily for the closing of the Second Vatican Council, 8 December 1965). Indeed, we are a single human family that is journeying on toward unity, making the most of solidarity and dialogue among peoples in the multiplicity of differences. — Pope Francis

The capacity to love is determined by the fact that man is ready to seek the good consciously with others, to subordinate himself to this good because of others, or to subordinate himself to others because of this good. — Pope John Paul II

Make your lives intensely Eucharistic. — Pope John Paul II

I'm not Catholic, but I have a great deal of respect for Pope John Paul. I think that he has stood firm on the moral issues, and I admire him greatly. — James Dobson

A leading humanist scholar and occupied many public offices, including that of Lord Chancellor from 1529 to 1532. More coined the word "utopia", a name he gave to an ideal, imaginary island nation whose political system he described in a book published in 1516. He is chiefly remembered for his principled refusal to accept King Henry VIII's claim to be supreme head of the Church of England, a decision which ended his political career and led to his execution as a traitor. In 1935, four hundred years after his death, More was canonized in the Catholic Church by Pope Pius XI, and was later declared the patron saint of lawyers and statesmen — Thomas More

It is now for the Catholic Church to bend herself to her work with calmness and generosity. It is for you to observe her with renewed and friendly attention. — Pope John XXIII

Some think, excuse me if I use the word, that in order to be good Catholics, we have to be like rabbits - but no. — Pope Francis

If I were a Catholic, I'd be asking what's going on here. I really would. "The pope also broke with his predecessors by suggesting that Catholic lawmakers are free to vote for same-sex marriage and civil unions." — Rush Limbaugh

In the words of Pope John Paul II at the canonization of St. Edith Stein - a Catholic Carmelite nun who died in Auschwitz because of her Catholic faith and her Jewish descent - "Do not accept anything as the truth if it lacks love. And do not accept anything as love which lacks truth! One without the other becomes a destructive lie. — Chris Stefanick

The Pope, if nothing else, should be a Catholic. If he were to announce that women would make great priests, except it's a pity that more of them aren't gay, because of the greater compassion they could bring to the task, it might endear him to liberal Catholic commentators , but it would make him something other than a Catholic, in the true sense. — Declan Lynch

Whether considered as a doctrine, or as an historical fact, or as a movemement, socialism, if it really remains socialism, cannotbe brought into harmony with the dogmas of the Catholic church ... Religious socialism, Christian socialism, are expressions implying a contradiction in terms. — Pope Pius XI

In the designs of Providence, there are no mere coincidences. — Pope John Paul II

Creation exists to be a place for the covenant that God wants to make with man. The goal of creation is the covenant, the love story of God and man. — Pope Benedict XVI

When Benedict dies, he will have the pleasure of standing before whatever furious God he believes in, to answer for how it was that he knew for undeniable fact that one
if not dozens
of his priests repeatedly molested, abused and/or raped young children for decades, and he did nothing to stop it. How much does God believe the pope's argument that Vatican PR trumps pedophilia? Joe Ratzinger, 82, will soon find out. — Mark Morford

The State which would provide everything, absorbing everything into itself, would ultimately become a mere bureaucracy incapable of guaranteeing the very thing which the suffering person - every person - needs: namely, loving personal concern. We do not need a State which regulates and controls everything, but a State which, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, generously acknowledges and supports initiatives arising from the different social forces and combines spontaneity with closeness to those in need. The Church is one of those living forces. — Pope Benedict XVI

In Christ and through Christ man has acquired full awareness of his dignity, of the heights to which he is raised, of the surpassing worth of his own humanity, and of the meaning of his existence. — Pope John Paul II

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

There is a species of moral, legal, and social modernism which we condemn, no less decidedly than we condemn theological modernism. — Pope Pius XI

The Catholic church, once all her assets have been put together, is the most formidable stockbroker in the world. The Vatican, independently of each successive pope, has been increasingly orientated towards the U.S. The Wall Street Journal said that the Vatican's financial deals in the U.S. alone were so big that very often it sold or bought gold in lots of a million or more dollars at one time. — Avro Manhattan

When, for example, in the name of non-discrimination, people try to force the Catholic Church to change her position on homosexuality or the ordination of women, then that means that she is no longer allowed to live out her own identity and that, instead, an abstract, negative religion is being made into a tyrannical standard that everyone must follow. That is then seemingly freedom - for the sole reason that it is liberation from the previous situation. — Pope Benedict XVI

Become who you are. — Pope John Paul II

Thus, I repeat, anti-Semitism and anti-Judaism are spiritually destructive and stupid. In the words of Pope Pius XI: "Spiritually, we are Semites." You cannot be a good Catholic until you've fallen in love with the religion and people of Israel. WALK — Scott Hahn

The Catholic community must offer support to those women who may find it difficult to accept a child, above all when they are isolated from their family and friends. Likewise, the community should be open to welcome back all who repent of having participated in the grave sin of abortion, and should guide them with pastoral charity to accept the grace of forgiveness, the need for penance, and the joy of entering once more into the new life of Christ. — Pope Benedict XVI

In 1231, Pope Gregory ordered the Dominicans to take charge of papal courts and decisions and so prevent mob rule and guarantee that the accused received a fair trial and the right of defence. This was the foundation of the Inquisition, and it was a move to organize, control, and limit violence, disruption, and division. Of course, it often failed and even achieved the opposite of its stated and original purpose, but it's surprising how often in an age of casual and brutal violence a relative moderation and legality was achieved. Civil law was far harsher than canon law, demanding confiscation of a heretic's property and usually death, something the Church had tried to prevent for generations. — Michael Coren

Do not be afraid to be saints. Follow Jesus Christ who is the source of freedom and light. Be open to the Lord so that He may lighten all your ways. — Pope John Paul II

The observance of Lent is the very badge of Christian warfare. By it we prove ourselves not to be enemies of Christ. By it we avert the scourges of divine justice. By it we gain strength against the princes of darkness, for it shields us with heavenly help. Should men grow remiss in their observance of Lent, it would be a detriment to God's glory, a disgrace to the Catholic religion, and a danger to Christian souls. Neither can it be doubted that such negligence would become the source of misery to the world, of public calamity, and of private woe. — Pope Benedict XIV

Theology is just not important in Judaism, or in any other religion, really. There's no orthodoxy, as you have it in the Catholic Church. No complicated creeds to which everybody must subscribe. No infallible pronouncements by a pope. Nobody can tell Jews what to believe. Within reason, you can believe what you like ... We have orthopraxy instead of orthodoxy. Right practice rather then right belief. That's all. You Christians make such a fuss about theology, but it's not important in the way you think. It's just poetry, really, ways of talking about the inexpressible. — Hyam Maccoby

Man's life comes from God: it is his image and imprint, as sharing in his breath of life. God therefore is the sole Lord of this life: Man cannot do with it as he wills. — Pope 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

Popery is the gospel transubstantiated into the flesh and blood of Paganism, under a few of the accidents of Christianity. — James Aitken Wylie

Lent stimulates us to let the Word of God penetrate our life and in this way to know the fundamental truth: who we are, where we come from, where we must go, what path we must take in life ... — Pope Benedict XVI

As Pope Francis visits the United States for the very first time, it is our privilege as Catholics and Americans to welcome His Holiness to our country. Here, he will find people who are uniquely free. — Marco Rubio

Only the chaste man and the chaste woman are capable of true love. — Pope John Paul II

The body, in fact, and it alone is capable of making visible that which is invisible; the spiritual and the divine. — Pope John Paul II

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

Some religions, such as Catholicism, fully endorsed slavery, as Pope Nicholas V made clear when, in 1452, he issued the radically proslavery document Dum Diversas. This was a papal bull granting Catholic countries such as Spain and Portugal "full and free permission to invade, search out, capture, and subjugate the Saracens and pagans and any other unbelievers and enemies of Christ wherever they may be, as well as their kingdoms, duchies, counties, principalities, and other property ... and to reduce their persons into perpetual slavery."10 These last few words - to reduce their persons into perpetual slavery - sound not just sinister to us, but also psychotic. They make perfect sense, however, in a Christian context, given that the Bible is itself a heedlessly proslavery tome. — Michael Shermer

I have very good relations with Pope Francis. I read constantly what he says and follow his speeches. Pope Francis has come to renew the Catholic Church, and he has new air to renew the spiritual world. Now, Venezuela does not need mediation. — Nicolas Maduro

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. — Pope Francis

For us Catholics, John Paul II will be remembered as a traveling Pope ... and we should also remember he preached world peace. When the United States invaded Iraq, for example, John Paul II said it was an illegal and immoral act. — Hugo Chavez

I believe that it is dangerous for a young person simply to go from achieving goal after goal, generally being praised along the way. So it is good for a young person to experience his limit, occasionally to be dealt with critically, to suffer his way through a period of negativity, to recognise his own limits himself, not simply to win victory after victory. A human being needs to endure something in order to learn to assess himself correctly, and not least to learn to think with others. Then he will not simply judge others hastily and stay aloof, but rather accept them positively, in his labours and his weaknesses. — Pope Benedict XVI

There are in truth three states of the converted: the beginning, the middle, and the perfection. In the beginning they experience the charms of sweetness; in the middle the contests of temptation; and in the end the fullness of perfection. — Pope Gregory I

Receiving the Eucharist means adoring Him whom we receive. Only in this way do we become one with Him, and are given, as it were, a foretaste of the beauty of the heavenly liturgy. The act of adoration outside Mass prolongs and intensifies all that takes place during the liturgical celebration itself. — Pope Benedict XVI

We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. — Pope Benedict XVI

The Mass is the most perfect form of prayer. — Pope Paul VI

The sacred rites, although not instituted specifically for proving the truth of the dogmas of the Catholic Faith incontrovertibly, are effectively the living voice of Catholic Truth, the oft-sounded expression of it. For that very reason the true Church of Christ, even as she shows great zeal to guard inviolate those forms of divine worship - since they are hallowed and are not to be changed - sometimes grants or permits something novel in the performance of them in certain instances. This she does especially when they are in conformity with their venerable antiquity. — Pope Leo XIII

Thoughtful men, with hearts craving the truth, have come to seek in the Catholic Church the road which leads with surety to eternal life. They have understood that they could not cleave to Jesus Christ as the Head of the Church if they did not belong to the Body of Jesus Christ which is the Church. Nor could they ever hope to possess in all its purity the faith of Jesus Christ if they were to reject its legitimate teaching authority entrusted to Peter and his successors. — Pope Leo XIII

I don't like to speak of Islamic violence, because every day, when I browse the newspapers, I see violence, here in Italy ... this one who has murdered his girlfriend, another who has murdered the mother-in-law ... and these are baptized Catholics! There are violent Catholics! — Pope Francis

The world offers you comfort. But you were not made for comfort. You were made for greatness — Pope Benedict XVI

All Jesus' pictures are falsifications; they cannot be about the real Jesus. This real man must have been totally different, because we know he enjoyed drinking - it is impossible to think of a person who enjoys drinking and not laughing. He enjoyed women - it is difficult to think of a man who enjoys women and not laughing. He was friendly, almost in love, with a prostitute, Mary Magdalene. It is difficult to move with a prostitute - he was not moving with a Catholic monk, not with a priest, not with the Pope ... with a prostitute! These were the condemnations against him. — Rajneesh

The Catholic priest, from the moment he becomes a priest, is a sworn officer of the pope. — Otto Von Bismarck

The Catholic Church sees voluntary vampirism as a kind of suicide. I tend to agree. Though the Pope also excommunicated all animators, unless we ceased raising the dead. Fine; I became Episcopalian. — Laurell K. Hamilton

It's pretty much what a lot of committed Catholics are making of [Pope Francis]. They're thrilled, they're refreshed, they think it's a breath of fresh air. — Ralph Martin

Look, Father, I don't think you're being straight with me. I want to join your Church and I'm going to join your Church, but you're holding too much back. I've had a long talk with a Catholic-a very pious, well-educated one, and I've learned a thing or two. For instance, that you have to sleep with your feet pointing East because that's the direction of heaven, and if you die in the night you can walk there. Now I'll sleep with my feet pointing any way that suits Julia, but d'you expect a grown man to believe about walking to heaven? And what about the Pope who made one of his horses a Cardinal? And what about the box you keep in the church porch, and if you put in a pound note with someone's name on it, they get sent to hell. I don't say there mayn't be a good reason for all this, but you ought to tell me about it and not let me find out for myself. — Evelyn Waugh

If there is a true measure of a person's soul, if there is a single gauge of real divinity, of how beautifully a fellow human honors this life, has genuine spiritual fire and is full of honest love and compassion, it has to be right there, in the eyes.
The Dalai Lama's eyes sparkle and dance with laughter and unbridled love. The Pope's eyes are dark and glazed, bleak as obsidian marbles. Pat Robertson's eyes are rheumy and hollow, like tiny potholes of old wax. Goldman Sachs cretins, well, they don't use their own eyes at all; they just steal someone else's. — Mark Morford

The Catholic tradition maintains that the objective norms governing right action are accessible to reason, prescinding from the content of revelation. — Pope Benedict XVI

I have a mustard seed; and I am not afraid to use it. — Pope Benedict XVI

Do not be afraid. Open wide the doors to Christ. — Pope John Paul II

There is no evil to be faced that Christ does not face with us. There is no enemy that Christ has not already conquered. There is no cross to bear that Christ has not already borne for us, and does not now bear with us. — Pope John Paul II

The Catholic Church [with Pope John Paul II] has lost its shepherd. The world has lost a champion of human freedom. — Chris Matthews

Jesus Christ has taken the lead on the way of the cross. He has suffered first. He does not drive us toward suffering but shares it with us, wanting us to have life and to have it in abundance. — Pope John Paul II

And Christ, through His own salvific suffering, is very much present in every human suffering, and can act from within that suffering by the powers of His Spirit of truth, His consoling spirit. — Pope John Paul II

Whosoever considers the immense labors undertaken by Catholic exegetes during well nigh two thousand years, so that the word of God, imparted to men through the Sacred Letters, might daily be more deeply and fully understood and more intensely loved, will easily be convinced that it is the serious duty of the faithful, and especially of priests, to make free and holy use of this treasure, accumulated throughout so many centuries by the greatest intellects. — Pope Pius XII

All the evils of the world are due to lukewarm Catholics. — Pope Pius V

We should let God be the One to praise us and not praise ourselves. For God detests those who commend themselves. Let others applaud our good deeds. — Pope Clement I

Both need each other: The agnostic cannot be content to not know, but must be in search of the great truth of faith; the Catholic cannot be content to have faith, but must be in search of God all the time, and in the dialogue with others, a Catholic can learn more about God in a deeper fashion. — Pope Benedict XVI

Since the Icelandic volcano obviously needs a virgin sacrifice and the Catholic Church obviously needs new leadership the Pope must volunteer to jump in the volcano. Pontiff, don't think of it as endorsing paganism, think of it as supersizing Ash Wednesday. — Bill Maher

As Our Predecessors have many times repeated, let no man think that he may for any reason whatsoever join the Masonic sect, if he values his Catholic name and his eternal salvation as he ought to value them. Let no one be deceived by a pretense of honesty. It may seem to some that Freemasons demand nothing that is openly contrary to religion and morality; but, as the whole principle and object of the sect lies in what is vicious and criminal, to join with these men or in any way to help them cannot be lawful — Pope Leo XIII

Catholic education aims not only to communicate facts but also to transmit a coherent, comprehensive vision of life, in the conviction that the truths contained in that vision liberate students in the most profound meaning of human freedom. — Pope John Paul II

The empire of Christ the King includes not only Catholic nations, not only baptized persons who, though of right belonging to the Church, have been led astray by error, or have been cut off from her by schism, but also all those who are outside the Christian faith: so that truly the whole of mankind is subject to the power of Jesus Christ. — Pope Leo XIII

Twenty-two martyrs were recognized, but there were many more, and not only Catholics. There were also Anglicans and some Mohammedans. — Pope Paul VI

A Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil, and so unworthy to
present himself for Holy Communion, if he were to deliberately vote for a
candidate precisely because of the candidate's permissive stand on abortion
and/or euthanasia. — Pope Benedict XVI

The Church must persist in the teaching transmitted to her by Christ. — Pope John Paul II