Pope Francis Quotes

The fullness of grace can transform the human heart and enable it to do something so great as to change the course of human history.

Investing in education means helping children and young people to discover and appreciate the most important values and to have the courage to look to their future with hope.

El cristiano ve a la Iglesia como Cuerpo de Cristo, como el recipiente que guarda íntegro el depósito de la fe, como la Esposa fiel que comunica sin mengua ni falta todo lo que Cristo le dejó como encargo … La Iglesia como realidad “santificada” plenamente y capaz de recibir y de comunicar — sin errores ni carencias, desde su propia pobreza y aun con sus pecados — toda la santidad de Dios, no es un “complemento” o un “agregado institucional” a Jesucristo, sino participación plena de su Encarnación, de su Vida, de su Pasión, muerte y Resurrección. … Al defender su pureza, su indefectibilidad, su santidad de Esposa, la Iglesia está defendiendo el “lugar” por donde pasa el Don la Vida de Dios al mundo y el don de la vida del mundo a Dios. Este don – cuya expresión más plena es la Eucaristía – no es un don más entre otros sino del don total de la Vida más íntima de la Trinidad que se derrama para la vida del mundo y la vida del mundo asumida por el Hijo que se ofrece al Padre.

May the Lord grant the deserved reward to those who have wished me well and will continue to pray for me. The suffering that marked the final part of my life, I offer to the Lord, for peace in the world and brotherhood among peoples.

(I) thank you for what you tell us about what is wrong in the Church, for helping us not to sweep it under the carpet, and for the voice you have given to the abuse victims," the pope said.

I think so-called unrestrained liberalism only makes the strong stronger and the weak weaker and excludes the most excluded. We need great freedom, no discrimination, no demagoguery and a lot of love. We need rules of conduct and also, if necessary, direct intervention from the state to correct the more intolerable inequalities.

Eugenio Scalfari: Your Holiness, in our previous meeting you told me that our species will disappear in a certain moment and that God, still out of his creative force, will create new species. You have never spoken to me about the souls who died in sin and will go to hell to suffer it for eternity. You have however spoken to me of good souls, admitted to the contemplation of God. But what about bad souls? Where are they punished?
Pope Francis: They are not punished, those who repent obtain the forgiveness of God and enter the rank of souls who contemplate him, but those who do not repent and cannot therefore be forgiven disappear. There is no hell, there is the disappearance of sinful souls.

We can build any number of walls and close our doors in the vain effort to feel secure in our wealth, at the expense of those left outside. It will not be that way for ever. The ‘day of the Lord,’ as described by the prophets, will destroy the barriers created between nations and replace the arrogance of the few with the solidarity of many.

Il Vangelo è una dottrina squilibrata. Beatitudini meritano il Nobel dello squilibrio; no al funzionalismo, al clericalismo e al gattopardismo.

The marketplace, by itself, cannot resolve every problem, however much we are asked to believe this dogma of neoliberal faith. Whatever the challenge, this impoverished and repetitive school of thought always offers the same recipes. Neoliberalism simply reproduces itself by resorting to the magic theories of 'spillover' or 'trickle' – without using the name – as the only solution to societal problems.

Only a merciful Church shines! Were we to forget, even only for a moment, that mercy is ‘what pleases God most,’ all our efforts would be in vain, for we would become slaves of our institutions and our structures, however renewed they might be. We would always be slaves.

Christ is risen, he is alive! He is no longer a prisoner of death, he is no longer wrapped in the shroud, and therefore we cannot confine him to a fairy tale, we cannot make him a hero of the ancient world, or think of him as a statue in a museum! On the contrary, we must look for him and this is why we cannot remain stationary. We must take action, set out to look for him: look for him in life, look for him in the faces of our brothers and sisters, look for him in everyday business, look for him everywhere except in the tomb. We must look for him without ceasing. Because if he has risen from the dead, then he is present everywhere, he dwells among us, he hides himself and reveals himself even today in the sisters and brothers we meet along the way, in the most ordinary and unpredictable situations of our lives. He is alive and is with us always, shedding the tears of those who suffer and adding to the beauty of life through the small acts of love carried out by each of us.

Some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system.

This is what I want, a poor Church for the poor.

Quando riceviamo l'Eucaristia, Gesù fa lo stesso con noi: ci conosce, sa che siamo peccatori e sbagliamo tanto, ma non rinuncia a unire la sua vita alla nostra. Sa che ne abbiamo bisogno, perché l'Eucaristia non è il premio dei santi, ma il Pane dei peccatori.