Pope Francis > Quotes

“The media only writes about the sinners and the scandals, he said, but that's normal, because 'a tree that falls makes more noise than a forest that grows.”
― Pope Francis

“I prefer a church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security.”
― Pope Francis

“No one can grow if he does not accept his smallness.”
― Pope Francis

“God never tires of forgiving us; we are the ones who tire of seeking his mercy.”
― Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium: The Joy of the Gospel

“It is not 'progressive' to try to resolve problems by eliminating a human life.”
― Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium: The Joy of the Gospel

“How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure but it is news when the stock market loses two points?”
― Pope Francis

“Living together is an art. It's a patient art, it's a beautiful art, it's fascinating.”
― Pope Francis

“Situations can change; people can change. Be the first to seek to bring good. Do not grow accustomed to evil, but defeat it with good.”
― Pope Francis, The Church of Mercy: A Vision for the Church

“This is the struggle of every person: be free or be a slave.”
― Pope Francis

“The question of truth is really a question of memory, deep memory, for it deals with something prior to ourselves and can succeed in uniting us in a way that transcends our petty and limited individual consciousness. It is a question about the origin of all that is, in whose light we can glimpse the goal and thus the meaning of our common path.”
― Pope Francis, Lumen Fidei: Enciclica sulla Fede

“Even if the life of a person has been a disaster, even if it is destroyed by vices, drugs, or anything else—God is in this person’s life. You can, you must try to seek God in every human life. Although the life of a person is a land full of thorns and weeds, there is always a space in which the good seed can grow. You have to trust God.”
― Pope Francis, A Big Heart Open to God: A Conversation with Pope Francis

“Idolatry, then, is always polytheism, an aimless passing from one lord to another. Idolatry does not offer a journey but rather a plethora of paths leading nowhere and forming a vast labyrinth.”
― Pope Francis, Lumen Fidei: Enciclica sulla Fede

“Indifference is dangerous, whether innocent or not.”
― Pope Francis

“Once man has lost the fundamental orientation which unifies his existence, he breaks down into the multiplicity of his desires; in refusing to await the time of promise, his life-story disintegrates into a myriad of unconnected instants.”
― Pope Francis, Lumen Fidei: Enciclica sulla Fede

“And here the first word that I wish to say to you: joy! Do not be men and women of sadness: a Christian can never be sad! Never give way to discouragement! Ours is not a joy born of having many possessions, but of having encountered a Person: Jesus, in our midst.”
― Pope Francis, The Church of Mercy: A Vision for the Church

“To be faithful, to be creative, we need to be able to change. To change! And why must I change? So that I can adapt to the situations in which I must proclaim the Gospel. To stay close to God, we need to know how to set out; we must not be afraid to set out.”
― Pope Francis, The Church of Mercy: A Vision for the Church

“Where there is truth, there is also light, but don't confuse light with the flash.”
― Pope Francis

“We don't have to expect everything from those who govern us; that would be juvenile.”
― Pope Francis

“If I'm not mistaken, Sigmund Freud said that in every idealisation there's an aggression. Depicting the Pope as a sort of Superman, a star, is offensive to me. The pope is a man who laughs, cries, sleeps calmly and has friends like everyone else. A normal person.”
― Pope Francis

“If our hearts are closed, if our hearts are made of stone, the stones find their way into our hands and we are ready to throw them.”
― Pope Francis

“Instead of imposing new obligations, (Christians) should appear as people who wish to share their joy, who point to a horizon of beauty and who invite others to a delicious banquet.”
― Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium: The Joy of the Gospel

“The most important thing in the life of every man and every woman is not that they should never fall along the way. The important thing is always to get back up, not to stay on the ground licking your wounds.”
― Pope Francis, The Name of God is Mercy

“Today, however, we have to realize that a true ecological approach always becomes a social approach; it must integrate questions of justice in debates on the environment, so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor.”
― Pope Francis, ENCYCLICAL LETTER LAUDATO SI' ON CARE FOR OUR COMMON HOME

“The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ, all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone! ‘Father, the atheists?’ Even the atheists. Everyone! We must meet one another doing good. ‘But I don’t believe, Father, I am an atheist!’ But do good: we will meet one another there.”
― Pope Francis

“We have only one heart, and the same wretchedness which leads us to mistreat an animal will not be long in showing itself in our relationships with other people. Every act of cruelty towards any creature is contrary to human dignity.”
― Pope Francis, Laudato Si': On the Care of Our Common Home

“Before all else, the Gospel invites us to respond to the God of love who saves us, to see God in others and to go forth from ourselves to seek the good of others.”
― Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium: The Joy of the Gospel

“Jesus on the cross feels the whole weight of the evil, and with the force of God's love he conquers it; he defeats it with his resurrection. This is the good that Jesus does for us on the throne of the cross. Christ's cross, embraced with love, never leads to sadness, but to joy, to the joy of having been saved and of doing a little of what he did on the day of his death.”
― Pope Francis, The Church of Mercy

“If we—all of us—accept the grace of Jesus Christ, he changes our heart and from sinners makes us saints. To become holy we do not need to turn our eyes away and look somewhere else, or have as it were the face on a holy card! No, no, that is not necessary. To become saints only one thing is necessary: to accept the grace that the Father gives us in Jesus Christ. There, this grace changes our heart. We continue to be sinners for we are weak, but with this grace which makes us feel that the Lord is good, that the Lord is merciful, that the Lord waits for us, that the Lord pardons us—this immense grace that changes our heart.”
― Pope Francis, The Church of Mercy: A Vision for the Church

“God's image is the married couple, a man and woman, together. Not just the man. Not just the woman. No, both of them. That's God's image.”
― Pope Francis

“Nobody can go off to battle unless he is fully convinced of victory beforehand. If we start without confidence, we have already lost half the battle and we bury our talents. While painfully aware of our own frailties, we have to march on without giving in, keeping in mind what the Lord said to Saint Paul: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor 12:9). Christian triumph is always a cross, yet a cross which is at the same time a victorious banner borne with aggressive tenderness against the assaults of evil. The evil spirit of defeatism is brother to the temptation to separate, before its time, the wheat from the weeds; it is the fruit of an anxious and self-centred lack of trust.”
― Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium: The Joy of the Gospel