An excuse is worse and more terrible than a lie, for an excuse is a lie guarded.
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.
As the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole world in which we live.
As the fundamental nucleus of society, the family has a right to the full support of the State in order to carry out fully its particular mission.
Being able to choose the time and manner of one’s death, without regard to what is chosen is presented as the ultimate freedom.
Brothers and sisters, do not be afraid to welcome Christ and accept his power… Open wide the doors for Christ. To his saving power open the boundaries of states, economic and political systems, the vast fields of culture, civilization and development.
Darkness can only be scattered by light, hatred can only be conquered by love.
Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song.
Do not be afraid. Do not be satisfied with mediocrity. Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.
Do not forget that true love sets no conditions; it does not calculate or complain, but simply loves.
Each man, in his suffering, can also become a sharer in the redemptive suffering of Christ.
Euthanasia is a grave violation of the law of God, since it is the deliberate and morally unacceptable killing of a human person.
Faced with today’s problems and disappointments, many people will try to escape from their responsibility. Escape in selfishness, escape in sexual pleasure, escape in drugs, escape in violence, escape in indifference and cynical attitudes. I propose to you the option of love, which is the opposite of escape.
Forgiveness is above all a personal choice, a decision of the heart to go against the natural instinct to pay back evil with evil.
Forgiveness, in its truest and highest form, is a free act of love.
Freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought.
From now on it is only through a conscious choice and through a deliberate policy that humanity can survive.
Have no fear of moving into the unknown. Simply step out fearlessly knowing that I am with you, therefore no harm can befall you; all is very, very well. Do this in complete faith and confidence.
Humanity should question itself, once more, about the absurd and always unfair phenomenon of war, on whose stage of death and pain only remain standing the negotiating table that could and should have prevented it.
I am a young person aged 83 – speaking to youths.
I appeal to all of you, wherever you are, whatever you are doing, to see the face of a brother or sister in every human being. What unites us is so much more than what separates and divides us : it is our common humanity.
I have a sweet tooth for song and music. This is my Polish sin.
I hope to have communion with the people, that is the most important thing.
I kiss the soil as if I placed a kiss on the hands of a mother, for the homeland is our earthly mother. I consider it my duty to be with my compatriots in this sublime and difficult moment.
I remember, above all, the Wadowice elementary school, where at least a fourth of the pupils in my class were Jewish. I should mention my friendship at school with one of them, Jerzy Kluger – a friendship that has lasted from my school days to the present. I can vividly remember the Jews who gathered every Saturday at the synagogue behind our school. Both religious groups, Catholics and Jews, were united, I presume, by the awareness that they prayed to the same God.
In Christ and through Christ man has acquired full awareness of his dignity, of the heights to which he is raised, of the surpasssing worth of his own humanity, and of the meaning of his existence.
It is a mistake to apply American democratic procedures to the faith and the truth. You cannot take a vote on the truth. The value of democracy stands or falls with the values which it embodies and promotes.
It is unbecoming for a cardinal to ski badly.
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.
Love is never defeated, and I could add, the history of Ireland proves it.
Love of Christ does not distract us from interest in others, but rather invites us to responsibility for them, to the exclusion of no one.
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.
Marriage is an act of will that signifies and involves a mutual gift, which unites the spouses and binds them to their eventual souls, with whom they make up a sole family – a domestic church.
May his justice and his peace become a gift for all, without distinction!
May the family so live in peace that from it peace may spread throughout the whole human family!
Not all are called to be artists in the specific sense of the term. Yet, as Genesis has it, all men and women are entrusted with the task of crafting their own life: in a certain sense, they are to make of it a work of art, a masterpiece.
People are made for happiness. Rightly, then, you thirst for happiness. Christ has the answer to this desire of yours. But he asks you to trust him. True joy is a victory, something which cannot be obtained without a long and difficult struggle. Christ holds the secret of this victory.
Pervading nationalism imposes its dominion on man today in many different forms and with an aggressiveness that spares no one. The challenge that is already with us is the temptation to accept as true freedom what in reality is only a new form of slavery.
Physical condition or advancing of age are not obstacles to a perfect life. God does not look at external things but at the soul.
Radical changes in world politics leave America with a heightened responsibility to be, for the world, an example of a genuinely free, democratic, just and humane society.
Science can purify religion from error and superstition. Religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes.
Social justice cannot be attained by violence. Violence kills what it intends to create.
Stupidity is also a gift from God, but one mustn’t misuse it.
The cemetery of the victims of human cruelty in our century is extended to include yet another vast cemetery, that of the unborn.
The commandment you shall not kill even in its more positive aspects of respecting, loving, and promoting human life, is binding on every individual human being.
The distinctive mark of the Christian, today more than ever, must be love for the poor, the weak, the suffering.
The evil of our times consists in the first place in a kind of degradation, indeed in a pulverization, of the fundamental uniqueness of each human person.
The family, as the fundamental and essential educating community, is the privileged means for transmitting the religious and cultural values which help the person to acquire his or her own identity. Founded on love and open to the gift of life, the family contains in itself the very future of society; its most special task is to contribute effectively to a future of peace.
The future starts today, not tomorrow.
The goal and target of our life is He, the Christ who awaits us – each one singly and altogether – to lead us across the boundaries of time to the eternal embrace of the God who loves us.
The Gospel of life must be proclaimed and human life defended in all places and all times.
The great danger for family life, in the midst of any society whose idols are pleasure, comfort and independence, lies in the fact that people close their hearts and become selfish.
The historical experience of socialist countries has sadly demonstrated that collectivism does not do away with alienation but rather increases it, adding to it a lack of basic necessities and economic inefficiency.
The Pope cannot remain a prisoner of the Vatican. I want to go to everybody… from the nomads of the steppes to the monks and nuns in their convents… I want to cross the threshold of every home.
The question confronting the Church today is not any longer whether the man in the street can grasp a religious message, but how to employ the communications media so as to let him have the full impact of the Gospel message.
The sickness of a family member, friend or neighbor is a call to Christians to demonstrate true compassion, that gentle and persevering sharing in another’s pain.
The United Nations organization has proclaimed 1979 as the Year of the Child. Are the children to receive the arms race from us as a necessary inheritance?
The unworthy successor of Peter who desires to benefit from the immeasurable wealth of Christ feels the great need of your assistance, your prayers, your sacrifice, and he most humbly asks this of you.
The vow of celibacy is a matter of keeping one’s word to Christ and the Church. A duty and a proof of the priest’s inner maturity; it is the expression of his personal dignity.
The way Jesus shows you is not easy. Rather, it is like a path winding up a mountain. Do not lose heart! The steeper the road, the faster it rises towards ever wider horizons.
The worst prison would be a closed heart
There are people and nations, Mother, that I would like to say to you by name. I entrust them to you in silence, I entrust them to you in the way that you know best.
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 alreasy borne for us, and does not now bear with us.
Those who advocate euthanasia have capitalized on people’s confusion, ambivalence and even fear about the use of modern life-prolonging technologies. Being able to choose the time and manner of one’s death, without regard to what is chosen
To all I want to say just one thing: May God reward you.
To every person of good will, eager to work tirelessly in the building of a new civilization of love, I say once more: Offer forgiveness and receive peace!
To humanity, which sometimes seems to be lost and dominated by the power of evil, selfishness and fear, the risen Lord gives the gift of His love which forgives, reconciles and reopens the soul to hope.
To maintain a joyful family requires much from both the parents and the children. Each member of the family has to become, in a special way, the servant of the others.
To you parents falls the responsibility for forming and educating your children to be people of peace: for this purpose, you in the first place must be workers for peace.
Today, for the first time in history, a Bishop of Rome sets foot on English soil. This fair land, once a distant outpost of the pagan world, has become, through the preaching of the Gospel, a beloved and gifted portion of Christ’s vineyard.
True holiness does not mean a flight from the world; rather, it lies in the effort to incarnate the Gospel in everyday life, in the family, at school and at work, and in social and political involvement.
Truth must be the foundation stone, the cement to solidify the entire social edifice.
Violence and arms can never resolve the problems of men.
Wages must enable the worker and his family to have access to a truly human standard of living in the material, social, cultural and spiritual orders. It is the dignity of the person which constitutes the criterion for judging work, not the other way around.
War is a defeat for humanity.
Wars generally do not resolve the problems for which they are fought and therefore… prove ultimately futile.
What really matters in life is that we are loved by Christ and that we love Him in return. In comparison to the love of Jesus, everything else is secondary. And, without the love of Jesus, everything is useless.
What we talked about will have to remain a secret between him and me. I spoke to him as a brother whom I have pardoned and who has my complete trust.
When freedom does not have a purpose, when it does not wish to know anything about the rule of law engraved in the hearts of men and women, when it does not listen to the voice of conscience, it turns against humanity and society.
Work bears a particular mark of man and of humanity, the mark of a person operating within a community of persons.
You are our dearly beloved brothers, and in a certain way, it could be said that you are our elder brothers.
You are priests, not social or political leaders. Let us not be under the illusion that we are serving the Gospel through an exaggerated interest in the wide field of temporal problems.
You will reciprocally promise love, loyalty and matrimonial honesty. We only want for you this day that these words constitute the principle of your entire life and that with the help of divine grace you will observe these solemn vows that today, before God, you formulate.
Young people are threatened… by the evil use of advertising techniques that stimulate the natural inclination to avoid hard work by promising the immediate satisfaction of every desire.
