Vatican Quotes & Sayings

It rarely snows because Antarctica is a desert. An iceberg means it's tens of millions of years old and has calved from a glacier. (This is why you must love life: one day you're offering up your social security number to the Russia Mafia; two weeks later you're using the word calve as a verb.) I saw hundreds of them, cathedrals of ice, rubbed like salt licks; shipwrecks, polished from wear like marble steps at the Vatican; Lincoln Centers capsized and pockmarked; airplane hangars carved by Louise Nevelson; thirty-story buildings, impossibly arched like out of a world's fair; white, yes, but blue, too, every blue on the color wheel, deep like a navy blazer, incandescent like a neon sign, royal like a Frenchman's shirt, powder like Peter Rabbit's cloth coat, these icy monsters roaming the forbidding black. — Maria Semple

The Vatican takes your breath away. — Joe Elliott

Benito Mussolini had barely seized power in Italy before the Vatican made an official treaty with him ... Catholicism became the only recognized religion in Italy ... and in return urged its followers to vote for Mussolini's party. Pope Pius XI described [Mussolini] as 'a man sent by providence.' ... Across southern Europe, the church was a reliable ally in the instatement of fascist regimes ... — Christopher Hitchens

St. Pope John XXIII called for the Second Vatican Council because he understood, as no Holy Father had in a long time, religion spoke to and found its language and symbols - its entire sense of the sacramental nature of existence - in the imagination that reveals not just the penalties of living, but the wonder and awe of our existence. — Eugene Kennedy

God works in mysterious ways. Sometimes he uses anonymous people. — Khaled Talib

The purpose of this overview is not to reject previous ideas and images about Mary, many of which were and still are inspiring and comforting to people. Rather, the hope is that as we have rediscovered scripture since Vatican II, we can view Mary as a strong Jewish woman, a model who can inspire women in the twenty-first century. — Mary Christine Athans

In ten Muslim countries you can get the death penalty just for being gay. If they were chopping the heads off of gay people in the Vatican, wouldn't there be a greater outcry among liberals? — Bill Maher

You cannot watch for twelve months without seeing how it is going down the tide; the anchors are pulled up, and the vessel is floating to destruction. It is drifting now, as near as I can tell you, south-east, and is nearing Cape Vatican, and if it drives much further in that direction it will be on the rocks of the Roman reef. We must get aboard her, and connect her with the glorious steam-tug of gospel truth, and drag her back. I should be glad if I could take her round by Cape Calvin, right up into the Bay of Calvary, and anchor her in the fair haven which is close over by Vera Cruz, or the cross. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Lord, I'll embrace whatever it is you want me to do, but please, please let me know what it is." - Father Kevin Thrall. — Peter J. Tanous

The English language is direct, unapologetic, and wonderfully amoral. Italian has a beautiful sound, but you cannot help but feel that you are always dealing with ghosts from the past and the looming dark presence of the Vatican. — Chiara Barzini

When I read the documents relative to the Modernism, as it was defined by Saint Pius X, and when I compare them to the documents of the II Vatican Council, I cannot help being bewildered. For what was condemned as heresy in 1906 was proclaimed as what is and should be from now on the doctrine and method of the Church. In other words, the modernists of 1906 were, somewhat, precursors to me. My masters were part of them. My parents taught me Modernism. How could Saint Pius X reject those that now seem to be my precursors? — Jean Guitton

You know, ISIS, their [Vatican] primary trophy. Very few people know this. Nobody even believed it. — Donald Trump

Vatican City is a bit overrated in my opinion - no offence to the Vatican. — Ed Stoppard

In my opinion humanity is being prayed upon, I mean as a species. Not only by old satanic families like the Rothschilds and Rockefellers, Collins, Dupont, Warner, Russell, the world's monarchies, the Vatican. But also prayed upon by these family's employees, by governments, by the military, by banking institutions, by academia. So who does that leave? That's all the people who aren't wealthy, aren't connected, aren't educated, who are easy to manipulate, are easy to persecute and who don't believe any of the issues which you cover on Red Ice. And that's a problem. And that breaks my heart. — Sean Young

And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. — Peter J. Tanous

When he looked up she was smiling, that flagstone-cracking beam of a smile that had always made her look twenty years younger. Agnes's smile wasn't the kind of smile that the regular world would associate with the word "nun." It was a smile that had always contained a touch of mischief, and also a terrible rage, kept in check until it was needed. This was what had enabled her to sustain the Home, and her many other projects, in the face of opposition from the Vatican on down. The smile and the rage. — Terry Pratchett

All he said was that we're all free if we pursue spirit. That's all he said. He didn't say let's set up a Vatican Concil. He didn't say, Martin Luther, you need to put our demands on the door. — Frederick Lenz

The love I felt for her on that train ride had a capital and provinces, parishes and a Vatican, an orange planet and many sullen moons
it was systemic and it was complete. — Gary Shteyngart

In the Vatican square, they were selling lollipops. You could buy lollipops about that big with the face of Pope John Paul II on them. You could buy a Pope John Paul II's face lollipop. I bought about ten.
And I just thought ... In the light of his death a few months later, I wondered whether sales of those lollipops went up or whether they went down. Did good Catholics think, 'Ah, the Pope's just died. It would now seem inappropriate ... to lick a sugar effigy of his face.'
Or did they go, 'Ah, the Pope's just died. But what better way ... to commemorate his life than by licking a sugar effigy of his face? — Stewart Lee

If the Vatican has a say in it I wouldn't expect miracles. — Ben Pastor

In the, Dei Verbum, there is a great statement of Vatican II: The bible is the word of god but in the words of men. — Robert E. Barron

It was in that bubble after Vatican II when it seemed like the best time ever to grow up Catholic. It was a time when the church was so connected to the world. — Rob Sheffield

I gave up trying to establish where progress lay, and where revolution, or to see the plot
as Amparo's [Brazilian] comrades expressed it
of capitalism. How could I continue to think like a European once I learned that the hopes of the far left were kept alive by a Nordeste bishop suspected of having harbored Nazi sympathies in his youth but who now faithfully and fearlessly held high the torch of revolt, upsetting the wary Vatican and the barracudas of Wall Street, and joyfully inflaming the atheism of the proletarian mystics won over by the tender yet menacing banner of a Beautiful Lady who, pierced by seven sorrows, gazed down on the sufferings of her people? — Umberto Eco

And then there were the readers, Gawd bless them. We must have signed hundreds of thousands of copies for them by now. The books are often well read to the point of physical disintegration; if we run across a shiny new copy, it's usually because the owner's previous five have been stolen by friends, struck by lightning or eaten by giant termites in Sumatra. You have been warned. Oh, and we understand there's a copy in the Vatican library. It'd be nice to think so. — Terry Pratchett

The Palace of Whitehall was a city unto itself. It surpassed the Vatican and Versailles in sheer size and pomp and it was no small task to navigate among 1,500 rooms. To find one's destination required prior knowledge or the good graces of a friendly gentleman or lady to take you by the hand and lead you through the labyrinth of offices and private residences. — Glenn Cooper

The fabric of space/time is much like one of the elaborate Vatican tapestries, thinks Nemes, and she who begins pulling on loose threads does so at the peril of watching the whole tapestry ravel. — Dan Simmons

Archbishop Milingo is a good Bishop and his contention that there are satanists in Rome is completely correct. Anybody who is acquainted with the state of affairs in the Vatican in the last 35 years is well aware that the prince of darkness has had and still has his surrogates in the court of St. Peter in Rome. — Malachi Martin

Like many, I feel the disconnect between the barefoot carpenter who preached on hillsides and the papal aristocracy; between the man who ate, slept, and taught in the desert and the man who takes his meals from fine china and silver in the majesty of the Vatican and controls billions of dollars' worth of real estate and banks. — William Friedkin

The Apotheosis of Washington - a 4,664-square-foot fresco that covers the canopy of the Capitol Rotunda - was completed in 1865 by Constantino Brumidi. Known as "The Michelangelo of the Capitol," Brumidi had laid claim to the Capitol Rotunda in the same way Michelangelo had laid claim to the Sistine Chapel, by painting a fresco on the room's most lofty canvas - the ceiling. Like Michelangelo, Brumidi had done some of his finest work inside the Vatican. Brumidi, however, immigrated to America in 1852, abandoning God's largest shrine in favor of a new shrine, the U.S. Capitol, which now glistened with examples of his mastery - from the trompe l'oeil of the Brumidi Corridors to the frieze ceiling of the Vice President's Room. And yet it was the enormous image hovering above the Capitol Rotunda that most historians considered to be Brumidi's masterwork. Robert — Dan Brown

There was only one decline in church attendance, and that was in the late 1960s when the Vatican said it was not a sin to miss Mass. They said Catholics could act like Protestants, and so they did. — Rodney Stark

The Vatican won't prosecute pedophile priests but I decide I'm not ready for motherhood and it's condemnation for me? These are the same people that won't support national condom distribution that PREVENTS teenage pregnancy. — Sonya Renee Taylor

You are afraid, just as the people of the Vatican were afraid to accept the Copernican theory. Not even they believed in the infallibility of the Ptolemaic theory. They were afraid of the new situation that would prevail if they accepted the Copernican theory. They were afraid of having to reorder their minds to accept it. Strictly speaking, the Catholic Church has still not publicly accepted the Copernican theory. You are like them. You are afraid of having to shed the amor with which you have long defended yourself. — Haruki Murakami

Vatican II was a force that seized the mind of the Roman Catholic Church and carried it across centuries from the 13th to the 20th. — Lance Morrow

What [Donald] Trump is saying is the pope will pray for Trump as president because Trump is gonna be the only guy trying to stop ISIS, which wants to take out the Vatican. It is. It is quite a curious thing. — Rush Limbaugh

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

Have you seen the Vatican wall? It's over 50-feet high. It's over 50-feet high. It's not even the kind of wall Trump's talking about building. — Rush Limbaugh

At the Vatican, Mr. Putin and Francis were expected to focus on the persecution of Christians in the Middle East, particularly in Syria, an issue of mutual concern. — Anonymous

Some argue that in time there was a noticeable change in Ratzinger's position held during the Council. However, as he himself said, and others would say about him, "It is not Ratzinger who has somehow changed and suddenly become reactionary and conservative. It is the secular culture that has drifted beyond the pale. — Gediminas T. Jankunas

I am Andrew Ryan, and I am here to ask you a question. Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?
'No,' says the man in Washington, 'it belongs to the poor.'
'No,' says the man in the Vatican, 'it belongs to God.'
'No,' says the man in Moscow, 'it belongs to everyone.'
I rejected those answers. Instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose
Rapture. — Andrew Ryan

Kevin's eyes shot open to complete darkness. What'd happened? His memory was returning slowly. He was now remembering. An ambush outside his apartment in the Vatican. — Peter J. Tanous

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

It is an astonishing thing that historians will look back and puzzle over, that in the 21st century, American women were such hunted creatures. Even as Republicans try to wrestle women into chastity belts, the Vatican is trying to muzzle American nuns. — Maureen Dowd

The emblem on the necktie reserved for the members of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews - The Vatican of golf - is of St. Andrew himself bearing the slatier cross on which, once he was captured at Patras, he was to be stretched before he was crucified.Only the Scots would have thought of celebrating a national game with the figure of a tortured saint. — Alistair Cooke

News conference in Chicago, where he apologized for the above statement, which was accepted by the Vatican. (11 August 1966) — John Lennon

Offerings for charity that Catholics from throughout the world sent to the Vatican were being used to plug up deficits created by a handful of Church officials who maneuvered the bureaucratic levers of the Holy See. — Gianluigi Nuzzi

The Vatican has to strike a difficult balance between running a country and running a religious institution. — Ian Caldwell

I am Andrew Ryan, and I'm here to ask you a question. Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? 'No!' says the man in Washington, 'It belongs to the poor.' 'No!' says the man in the Vatican, 'It belongs to God.' 'No!' says the man in Moscow, 'It belongs to everyone.' I rejected those answers; instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose ... Rapture, a city where the artist would not fear the censor, where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality, Where the great would not be constrained by the small! And with the sweat of your brow, Rapture can become your city as well. — Andrew Ryan

'The Fifth Gospel' is set entirely inside the Vatican and told from the perspective of a Catholic priest. I'm not Catholic myself, yet authenticity and factual accuracy are very important to me, so the novel required an enormous amount of research. — Ian Caldwell

The city of Rome is called the "city of seven hills" and the Vatican is located within its confinement. These are the hills: Palatine, Capitoline, Quirinal, Aventine, Esquiline, Viminal, and Caelian. — Robert Rite

There is a very well-defined procedure that allows the Vatican to raise issues with a particular theologian about something that does not appear in conformity with the Catholic faith. It is not always easy to make this determination. — Godfried Danneels

From the air, Vatican City looked like a marble Monopoly set. The Church owned all the property from Broadwalk to Illinois Avenue, has three hotels on every lot, and no matter how often it tossed the dice you just knew it would never land on Go to Jail, it would be forever passing Go and collecting $200. — Tom Robbins

And the Vatican, whatever anyone else might have thought on the subject, answered, like Hebrew National hot dogs, to "a higher authority. — Anonymous

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

You know that ISIS wants to go in and take over the Vatican? You have heard that. You know, that's a dream of theirs, to go into Italy. — Donald Trump

At Vatican II my mind was growing through the embryonic beginning of a reversal of moral conscience unlike any I had known. I found myself increasingly critical of the Freudian psychoanalysis that had long shaped my interest in personal behavior change. I better recognized the long captivity of Protestant pastoral care to contemporary psychology and became a critic of the very accommodation to modern consciousness that I myself had advocated throughout the preceding decade. — Thomas C. Oden

It's like the Vatican's porn collection," Zeb told her. "Safe in our hands. — Margaret Atwood

Sensible Catholics have for generations been ignoring the views on contraception held by reactionary old men in the Vatican, but alas, since it is the business of all religious doctrines to keep their votaries in a state of intellectual infancy (how else do they keep absurdities seeming credible?), insufficient numbers of Catholics have been able to be sensible. — A.C. Grayling

People are quite clear in viewing nuns as the servants and the teachers and the supporters of the poor. You contrast that with the fact that the Vatican did virtually nothing about long-known pedophiles, and it's just too much. — Gloria Steinem

The sale of indulgences is sometimes regarded as one of the first major waves of capitalist commodification. It certainly laid the basis for all that hoarded wealth in the Vatican. Talk about the commodification of conscience and honor! — David Harvey

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

It is necessary to reaffirm our solid opposition to any direct offense against life, especially when innocent and defenseless, and the unborn child in its mother's womb is the quintessence of innocence. Let us remember the words of Vatican Council II: 'Therefore from the moment of its conception life must be guarded with the greatest care while abortion and infanticide are unspeakable crimes.' — Pope Francis

For Catholics before Vatican II, the land of the free was pre-eminently the land of Sister Says-except, of course, for Sister, for whom it was the land of Father Says. — Wilfrid Sheed

The Vatican has tried to condemn 'The Magdalene Sisters' as a pack of lies and that I've made it all up - I wish I was that good a dramatist - and in terms of public relations, that was the daftest thing they ever did. — Peter Mullan

We're Vatican assassins. How complicated can it be? — Charlie Sheen

Earlier this month, the Vatican's top bioethics official condemned as "reprehensible" the assisted suicide of an East Bay woman, Brittany Maynard, who was suffering terminal brain cancer and said she wanted to die with dignity. Francis didn't refer to the Maynard case specifically. While denouncing euthanasia in general, he also condemned abortion, in vitro fertilization and embryonic stem cell research. — Anonymous

One of the fundamental issues with The Vatican is that the world changed on us. That show was conceived and written while Pope Benedict was still in charge of the Vatican, and it was conceived in a world that now would feel very dated. — David Nevins

Francis seems familiar because Catholics have already known him in the Vatican II priests who have been their pastors and sacramental ministers over the years since that council brought new life to an old church. Catholics have known him in the bishops and priests who brought the spirit of the council to their dioceses and parishes. — Eugene Kennedy

I'd love to go and visit the Mosque in Mecca again, just for the sheer beauty of it, not for God - much the way a non-Catholic might go to Vatican City because of the beauty of the buildings and the artifacts. — Ayaan Hirsi Ali

The fact that the Vatican is concluding a treaty with the new Germany means the acknowledgement of the National Socialist state by the Catholic Church. This treaty shows the whole world clearly and unequivocally that the assertion that National Socialism is hostile to religion is a lie. — Adolf Hitler

I sincerely hope I can contribute to the progress there has been in relations between Jews and Catholics since the Second Vatican Council in a spirit of renewed collaboration. — Pope Francis

The Vatican is an organization that excommunicates women for attempting to become priests13 but does not excommunicate male priests for raping children.14 It excommunicates doctors who perform abortions to save a mother's life - even if the mother is a nine-year-old girl raped by her stepfather and pregnant with twins15 - but it did not excommunicate a single member of the Third Reich for committing genocide. — Sam Harris

The hope is that papal calls for a New Pentecost, which go back to St. John XXIII, and papal calls for a New Evangelization, which go back to Vatican II and especially to St. John Paul II, can come together. Pope Francis' vision is to bring together the reality of a New Pentecost with the urgency of a New Evangelization. — Ralph Martin

After September 11th, freedom of speech in America has become a topic that's touchier than a Vatican summer camp. — Dennis Miller

Books that Uncle bought in Odessa or acquired in Heidelberg, books that he discovered in Lausanne or found in Berlin or Warsaw, books he ordered from America and books the like of which exist nowhere but in the Vatican Library, in Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, classical and modern Greek, Sanskrit, Latin, medieval Arabic, Russian, English, German, Spanish, Polish, French, Italian, and languages and dialects I had never even heard of, like Ugaritic and Slovene, Maltese and Old Church Slavonic. — Amos Oz

I don't live in the papal residence. I live in a simple apartment behind the Vatican gas station. — Pope Francis

If you sell the Vatican and you take that money and you use it to feed every single human being on the planet, you will get cah-azy pussy. All the pussy. I don't mean literally. That might not be your cup of tea. I don't know what your version of 'all the pussy' is. But you'll get all the pussy. — Sarah Silverman

Once you go Vatican, you never go back again. — Homer

We wish to continue in following up the legacy of the Second Vatican Council whose wise regulations have still to be led to their fulfilment, being careful that a push, generous perhaps, but unduly timed, does not detract from the content and meaning of the council, and on the other hand being careful and reined and timid efforts do not slow up the magnificent drive of renewal and of life. — Pope John Paul I

At Vatican Council II, one dissenting Roman Catholic theologian declared: "Yes, the Bible says "Be fruitful and multiply," but that was when the population was two per square world. — Israel Shenker

Samhain had its origins, like many modern holidays or celebrations, in pagan times. As the sidhe-seers had been inclined to erect churches and
abbeys on their sacred sites, the Vatican had been wont to "Christianize" ancient, pagan celebrations in an if-you-can't-beat-them-and-don't-wantto-
join-them-rename-it-and-pretend-it-was-yours-all-along campaign. — Karen Marie Moning

In 1963 ... The Vatican condemned Dr. No as a 'dangerous mixture of violence, vulgarity, sadism and sex.' Ka-ching! — Manohla Dargis

The changes in the Catholic Church since Vatican II can certainly be scanned in terms of this long retreat from the sacred which has followed the inception of consciousness into the human species. — Julian Jaynes

Except they kept asking me questions like 'What is your biggest source of conflict about the Pope?' Or 'Has the Pope ever tried to suppress your scientific work?' Completely out of left field!
"They didn't want to hear me tell them how much Pope Benedict supported the Vatican Observatory and its scientific work. So, finally, frustrated that they weren't getting the story they wanted out of me, one of them asked, 'Would you baptize an extraterrestrial?'
"What did you answer?"
"Only if she asks!"
"I love it! How did they react?"
"They all got a good laugh, which is what I intended. And then, the next day, they all ran my joke as if it were a straight story, as if I had made some sort of official Vatican pronouncement about aliens. — Guy Consolmagno

There seemed to be no one in a position of power, from the Vatican to Wall Street, from Parliament to Scotland Yard to Fleet Street, who could think of anything better to do than abuse it ... — Edward St. Aubyn

What I don't like about America is not necessarily an American thing; it's a capitalist thing. This is the Vatican of capitalism. — Aleksandar Hemon

He knew that if Michelle entered into the walls of the Vatican, she'd corrupt every single clergyman within, causing them to forsake their vows in trade for a few moments with her. With one glance men would happily follow her to the bowels of hell and swim across the lake of fire to get to her. — Travis Luedke

Listen, do you really expect me to believe that God lives beneath the Vatican?- Ezio Auditore — Oliver Bowden

the St Bartholomew's Day Massacre, between 5,000 and 10,000 Protestants were slaughtered in less than twenty-four hours. When the pope in Rome heard the news from France, he was so overcome by joy that he organised festive prayers to celebrate the occasion and commissioned Giorgio Vasari to decorate one of the Vatican's rooms with a fresco of the massacre (the room is currently off-limits to visitors).2 More Christians were killed by fellow Christians in those twenty-four hours than by the polytheistic Roman Empire throughout its entire existence. — Yuval Noah Harari

What the Vatican did will be indelibly and eternally engraved in our hearts. Priests and even high prelates did things that will forever be an honor to Catholicism. — Israel Zolli

I sang 'O Holy Night' with the Vatican orchestra, but also a Blake - a lullaby that William Blake wrote for the Christ child, and I set it to music, and the Vatican orchestra played the music. — Patti Smith

When I moved to Seattle in fourth grade, I joined the Seattle Girls' Choir. It's a world-class choir, and we competed, toured Europe, and went and sang at the Vatican, so it was a really awesome experience to have that young. — Bonnie McKee

The pope was lying fully stretched out on the floor, his body half-obscured by Cardinal Villot, who was leaning over him. Calvi's heart jumped into his throat. The pontiff 's eyes were shut, his face distorted in pain. He wasn't breathing. He was life-less, drained of color. — Peter J. Tanous

I was raised Catholic at a time when Vatican II was just taking hold. — Richard Montanari

Like many Vatican pronouncements, the official version of events would bear little resemblance to the truth. — Daniel Silva

Well, they've come a long way. To think that he now could access a secret document held in the Vatican archives, via electronic technology. — Peter J. Tanous

Vatican city is an independent state created by the Lateran treaty of 11th Feb 1929 which was signed by Pope Pius XI, the holy see and the Italian government. It covers an area of 108 acres on the hill west of the Tiber river. It is separated from the rest of Rome by high walls on all sides except at the Piazza of St Peter. — Julian Noyce

One does not go to Vatican City with one's ass hanging out. — Dan Brown

Before Vatican II, in theology, as in other areas, the discipline was fixed. After the council there has been a revolution - a chaotic revolution - with free discussion on everything. There is now no common theology or philosophy as there was before. — Godfried Danneels

That married couples can live together day after day is a miracle that the Vatican has overlooked. — Bill Cosby

When you turn a blind eye to atrocities, you are complicit in them. — David Crossman