A church that limits itself to just carrying out administrative duties, caring for its tiny flock, is a church that in the long run will get sick.
A good priest can be recognized by the way his people are anointed.
An example I often use to illustrate the reality of vanity, is this: look at the peacock; it’s beautiful if you look at it from the front. But if you look at it from behind, you discover the truth. Whoever gives in to such self-absorbed vanity has huge misery hiding inside them.
And now I would like to give the blessing, but first I want to ask you a favor. Before the bishop blesses the people, I ask that you would pray to the Lord to bless me – the prayer of the people for their Bishop. Let us say this prayer – your prayer for me – in silence.
And now let us begin this journey, the Bishop and people, this journey of the Church of Rome, which presides in charity over all the Churches, a journey of brotherhood in love, of mutual trust. Let us always pray for one another. Let us pray for the whole world that there might be a great sense of brotherhood.
Being upfront and honest about one’s sinful nature actually helps create a more authentic encounter with God. There are people who believe they are righteous, follow the catechism well enough and abide by the Christian faith, but they don’t have the experience of having been saved.
Brothers and sisters, I am leaving you. Thank you for your welcome. Pray for me and I will be with you again soon.
Don’t think I’m making publicity for my cardinals’ books!
First of all, I would say a prayer: Pray for our Bishop Emeritus Benedict XVI. Let us all pray together for him, that the Lord bless him and Our Lady protect him.
Flying a kite resembles the approach you need to take regarding a person’s growth: sometimes you need to give them some slack because they are ‘wavering.’
For believers, for us Christians, like Abraham, like Saint Joseph, the hope that we bring is set against the horizon of God, which has opened up before us in Christ. It is a hope built on the rock which is God.
God’s face is that of a merciful father who is always patient. A little bit of mercy makes the world less cold and more just.
Have a nice Sunday and have a nice lunch.
He needs to begin building a hut using the boards from the sunken ship, together with new things found on the island he’s washed up on.”
I hope you don’t regret this. May God forgive you.
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.
I will now give my blessing to you and to the whole world, to all men and women of good will.
If we do not confess to Christ what would we be? We would end up a pitiful NGO… What would happen would be like when children make sand castles and then it all falls down.
In our city there are people committing human sacrifice, killing the dignity of these men and these women, these girls and boys that are submitted to this treatment, to slavery. We cannot remain calm.
In our ecclesiastical region there are priests who don’t baptize the children of single mothers because they weren’t conceived in the sanctity of marriage. These are today’s hypocrites. Those who clericalize the church. Those who separate the people of God from salvation.
In the end, everything has been entrusted to our protection, and all of us are responsible for it. Be protectors of God’s gifts!
It’s best to not confuse optimism with hope. Optimism is a psychological attitude toward life. Hope goes further.
Jesus did not preach his own politics: he accompanied others.
Journalists sometimes risk becoming ill from coprophilia and thus fomenting coprophagia: which is a sin that taints all men and women, that is, the tendency to focus on the negative rather than the positive aspects.
Let us never forget that authentic power is service, and that the Pope too, when exercising power, must enter ever more fully into that service which has its radiant culmination on the Cross.
My hope is that this journey of the Church that we begin today, together with help of my Cardinal Vicar, be fruitful for the evangelization of this beautiful city.
Not paying fairly, not giving a job because you are only looking at balance sheets, only looking at how to make a profit. That goes against God!
Only those who serve with love are able to protect!
Only we big sinners have this grace of knowing what salvation really means.
Our daily problems and worries can wrap us up in ourselves, in sadness and bitterness… and that is where death is. That is not the place to look for the One who is alive!
Resentment is like a full house with lots of people crammed inside so they can’t see the sky, while pain is like a city in which there are still lots of people, but at least you can see the sky.
Sin is not a stain that I must wash out. What I need to do is ask forgiveness and reconcile myself, not go to the drycleaners. I have to go encounter Jesus who gave his life for me.
The Catholic Church is aware of the importance of the promotion of friendship and respect between men and women of different religious traditions – this I wish to repeat this: the promotion of friendship and respect between men and women of different religious traditions – this is attested evident also in the valuable work undertaken by the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue.
The Church is equally aware of the responsibility that each of us bring towards our world, abd to the whole of creation, that we must love and protect. And we can do a lot for the good of the less fortunate, for those who are weak and suffering, to promote justice, to promote reconciliation, to build peace.
The shipwrecked castaway faces the challenge of survival with creativity.
The Vatican, an age-old institution used to having almost everything done by the book, is bracing for the unscripted papacy.
There are many people who want to work but cannot. When a society is organised in a way that not everyone is given the chance to work, that society is not just.
There’d come the moment when the kite would begin making a ‘figure 8’ and begin falling. In order to keep that from happening, you mustn’t pull the string. The kids who knew more than us would scream, ‘Give it some slack, it’s wobbling!’.
Tomorrow I want to go to pray the Madonna, that she may protect Rome.
We are afraid of God’s surprises; we are afraid of God’s surprises! He always surprises us!
We feel the closeness also of those men and women who, while not belonging to any religious tradition, feel, however the need to search for the truth, the goodness and the beauty of God, and who are our precious allies in efforts to defend the dignity of man, in the building of a peaceful coexistence between peoples and in the careful protection of creation.
We know how much violence has been provoked in recent history by the attempt to eliminate God and the divine from the horizon of humanity, and we feel the need to witness in our societies the original openness to transcendence that is inherent in the human heart.
We must keep alive in our world the thirst for the absolute, and must not allow the vision of the human person with a single dimension to prevail, according to which man is reduced to what he produces and to what he consumes: this is one most dangerous threats of our times.
We must not be afraid of goodness or even tenderness!
We need to avoid the spiritual sickness of a church that is wrapped up in its own world: when a church becomes like this, it grows sick.
When one does not profess Jesus Christ, one professes the worldliness of the devil.
Whenever human beings fail to live up to this responsibility, whenever we fail to care for creation and for our brothers and sisters, the way is opened to destruction and hearts are hardened.
You all know that the duty of the Conclave was to give a bishop to Rome. It seems that my brother Cardinals have come almost to the ends of the Earth to get him… but here we are.
