Pope Benedict XVI Quotes

166 Sourced Quotes

If the divorced are remarried civilly, they find themselves in a situation that objectively contravenes God's law. Consequently, they cannot receive Holy Communion as long as this situation persists. This norm is not at all a punishment or a discrimination against the divorced and remarried, but rather expresses an objective situation that of itself renders impossible the reception of Holy Communion: '... If these people were admitted to the Eucharist, the faithful would be led into error and confusion regarding the Church's teaching about the indissolubility of marriage'.

Pope Benedict XVI
God no longer simply stands before us as the One who is totally Other. He is within us, and we are in him. His dynamic enters into us and then seeks to spread outward to others until it fills the world, so that his love can truly become the dominant measure of the world.

Pope Benedict XVI
We have to let God's love break through the hard crust of our indifference, our spiritual weariness, our blind conformity to the spirit of this age. Only then can we let it ignite our imagination and shape our deepest desires. That is why prayer is so important: daily prayer, private prayer in the quiet of our hearts and before the Blessed Sacrament, and liturgical prayer in the heart of the Church.

Pope Benedict XVI
Today we bury his remains in the earth as a seed of immortality. Our hearts are full of sadness, yet at the same time (full) of joyful hope and profound gratitude.

Pope Benedict XVI
Ultimately, in the battle against lies and violence, truth and love have no other weapon than the witness of suffering.

Pope Benedict XVI
Love is the very process of passing over, of transformation, of stepping outside the limitations of fallen humanity - in which we are all separated from one another and ultimately impenetrable to one another - into an infinite otherness.

Pope Benedict XVI
Authentic love is obviously something good. When we love we become most fully human. But people often consider themselves loving when actually they are possessive or manipulative. People sometimes treat others as objects to satisfy their own needs. How easy it is to be deceived by the many voices in our society that advocate a permissive approach to sexuality, without regard for modesty, self-respect or the moral values that bring quality into human relationships! This is worship of a false god; instead of bringing life, it brings death.

Pope Benedict XVI
We can fall, but in the end we fall into God's hands, and God's hands are good hands.

Pope Benedict XVI
One of the greatest challenges facing the economy is to achieve the most efficient use — not abuse — of natural resources

Pope Benedict XVI
In and of itself, the market is not, and must not become, the place where the strong subdue the weak.

Pope Benedict XVI
Anyone who has discovered Christ must lead others to him. A great joy cannot be kept to oneself. It has to be passed on.

Pope Benedict XVI
Meaning that is self-made is in the last analysis no meaning. Meaning, that is, the ground on which our existence as a totality can stand and live, cannot be made but only received.

Pope Benedict XVI
The religious sense planted within the human heart leads us to meet the needs of others and to search for concrete ways to contribute to the common good. Religion has a special role in this regard, for it teaches people that authentic service requires sacrifice and self-discipline, which in turn must be cultivated through self-denial, temperance and a moderate use of the world's goods.

Pope Benedict XVI
The market does not exist in the pure state. It is shaped by the cultural configurations which define it and give it direction.

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
When, in adoration, we look at the consecrated Host, the sign of creation speaks to us. And so, we encounter the greatness of his gift; but we also encounter the Passion, the Cross of Jesus and his Resurrection. Through this gaze of adoration, he draws us toward himself, within his mystery, through which he wants to transform us as he transformed the Host.

Pope Benedict XVI
Certainly, the contradiction of tensions and divisions between the followers of different religious traditions, sadly, cannot be denied. However, is it not also the case that often it is the ideological manipulation of religion, sometimes for political ends, that is the real catalyst for tension and division, and at times even violence in society?

Pope Benedict XVI
The extermination of millions of unborn children, in the name of the fight against poverty, actually constitutes the destruction of the poorest of all human beings.

Pope Benedict XVI
God's heart calls to our hearts, inviting us to come out of ourselves, to forsake our human certainties, to trust in him and, by following his example, to make ourselves a gift of unbounded love.

Pope Benedict XVI
Only from God does true revolution come... the definitive way to change the world.

Pope Benedict XVI
The Christian faith can never be separated from the soil of sacred events, from the choice made by God, who wanted to speak to us, to become man, to die and rise again, in a particular place and at a particular time.

Pope Benedict XVI
The world needs transparent lives, clear souls, pure minds that refuse to be perceived as mere objects of pleasure.

Pope Benedict XVI
Christianity is not a highly complicated collection of so many dogmas that it is impossible for anyone to know them all; it is not something exclusively for academicians who can study these things, but it is something simple: God exists and God is close in Jesus Christ.

Pope Benedict XVI
"There is more joy in giving than in receiving." Never doubt the truth of our Lord's promise that whatever we give him of our creativity, our resources, our persons, will come back to us in abundance.

Pope Benedict XVI
How many questions arise in this place! Constantly the question comes up: Where was God in those days? Why was he silent? How could he permit this endless slaughter, this triumph of evil?... We must continue to cry out humbly yet insistently to God: Rouse yourself! Do not forget mankind, your creature!

Pope Benedict XVI
My dear friends, God's creation is one and it is good. The concerns for nonviolence, sustainable development, justice and peace, and care for our environment are of vital importance for humanity. They cannot, however, be understood apart from a profound reflection on the innate dignity of every human life from conception to natural death: a dignity conferred by God himself and thus inviolable.

Pope Benedict XVI
When human affairs are so ordered that there is no recognition of God, there is a belittling of man. That is why, in the final analysis, worship and law cannot be completely separated from each other. God has a right to a response from man, to man himself, and where that right of God totally disappears, the order of law among men is dissolved, because there is no cornerstone to keep the whole structure together.

Pope Benedict XVI
Rights presuppose duties, if they are not to become mere licence

Pope Benedict XVI
To be truly alive is to be transformed from within, open to the energy of God's love. In accepting the power of the Holy Spirit you can also transform your families, communities and nations. Set free the gifts! Let wisdom, courage, awe and reverence be the marks of greatness!

Pope Benedict XVI
I think the essential point is a weakness of faith.

Pope Benedict XVI