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Pope Benedict XVI

132 quotes

“[R]eason and faith can come to each other's assistance. Only together will they save man. Entranced by an exclusive reliance on technology, reason without faith is doomed to flounder in an illusion of its own omnipotence. Faith without reason risks being cut off from everyday life”
Pope Benedict XVI (1927–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Rights presuppose duties, if they are not to become mere licence”
Pope Benedict XVI (1927–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Uncertainty over working conditions caused by mobility and deregulation, when it becomes endemic, tends to create new forms of psychological instability, giving rise to difficulty in forging coherent life-plans, including that of marriage.”
Pope Benedict XVI (1927–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The primary capital to be safeguarded and valued is man, the human person in his or her integrity”
Pope Benedict XVI (1927–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In and of itself, the market is not, and must not become, the place where the strong subdue the weak.”
Pope Benedict XVI (1927–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1927–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Every economic decision has a moral consequence.”
Pope Benedict XVI (1927–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Projects for integral human development cannot ignore coming generations, but need to be marked by solidarity and inter-generational justice”
Pope Benedict XVI (1927–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One of the greatest challenges facing the economy is to achieve the most efficient use — not abuse — of natural resources”
Pope Benedict XVI (1927–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is the duty of the Church to proclaim always and everywhere the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”
Pope Benedict XVI (1927–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Making my own the concerns of my venerable Predecessors, I consider it opportune to offer appropriate responses so that the entire Church, allowing herself to be regenerated by the power of the Holy Spirit, may present herself to the contemporary world with a missionary impulse in order to promote the new evangelization.”
Pope Benedict XVI (1927–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is impossible to interpret Jesus as a violent person. Violence is contrary to the Kingdom of God, it is a tool of the Antichrist. Violence never serves humanity, but dehumanizes.”
Pope Benedict XVI (1927–2022) first seen 2012 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Sunday Angelus (11 March 2012), as quoted in "Jesus not political but prophetic, Pope says" at the Catholic News Agency (11 March 2012)
“Is disobedience a path of renewal for the Church? ... Surely Christ Himself corrected human traditions which threatened to stifle the word and the will of God? Indeed He did, so as to rekindle obedience to the true will of God, to His ever enduring word. His concern was for true obedience, as opposed to human caprice.”
Pope Benedict XVI (1927–2022) first seen 2012 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 5 April 2012
“After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths due to an advanced age are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry. In order to govern the bark of St. Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary — strengths which in the last few months, have deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me.”
Pope Benedict XVI (1927–2022) first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Statement announcing his resignation as pope, quoted in ABCNews, 'Pope Benedict to Resign, Vatican Says' (11 February 2013)
“Charity without faith is meaningless, and faith without charity remains a dead letter.”
Pope Benedict XVI (1927–2022) first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in Elise Harris, "Priest Swaps Clerical Hats with 'Sharp, Healthy' Benedict XVI", National Catholic Register (11 February 2013)
“If the Church were to start transforming herself into a directly political subject, ... she would do less, not more, for the poor and for justice, because she would lose her independence and her moral authority, identifying herself with a single political path and with debatable partisan positions. The Church is the advocate of justice and of the poor, precisely because she does not identify with politicians nor with partisan interests. Only by remaining independent can she teach the great criteria and inalienable values, guide consciences and offer a life choice that goes beyond the political sphere. To form consciences, to be the advocate of justice and truth, to educate in individual and political virtues: that is the fundamental vocation of the Church in this area. And lay Catholics must be aware of their responsibilities in public life; they must be present in the formation of the necessary consensus and in opposition to injustice.”
Pope Benedict XVI (1927–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“After the Second Vatican Council, the impression arose that the pope really could do anything in liturgical matters, especially if he were acting on the mandate of an ecumenical council. Eventually, the idea of the givenness of the liturgy, the fact that one cannot do with it what one will, faded from the public consciousness of the West. In fact, the First Vatican Council had in no way defined the pope as an absolute monarch. On the contrary, it presented him as the guarantor of obedience to the revealed Word. The pope's authority is bound to the Tradition of faith, and that also applies to the liturgy. It is not "manufactured" by the authorities. Even the pope can only be a humble servant of its lawful development and abiding integrity and identity. ... The authority of the pope is not unlimited; it is at the service of Sacred Tradition... . The greatness of the liturgy depends - we shall have to repeat this frequently — on its unspontaneity.”
Pope Benedict XVI (1927–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“According to the teaching of the Church, men and women with homosexual tendencies 'must be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided'. They are called, like other Christians, to live the virtue of chastity. The homosexual inclination is however 'objectively disordered' and homosexual practices are 'sins gravely contrary to chastity'.In those situations where homosexual unions have been legally recognized or have been given the legal status and rights belonging to marriage, clear and emphatic opposition is a duty. One must refrain from any kind of formal cooperation in the enactment or application of such gravely unjust laws and, as far as possible, from material cooperation on the level of their application. In this area, everyone can exercise the right to conscientious objection.”
Pope Benedict XVI (1927–2022) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Doctrinal document Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions between Homosexual Persons, July 31, 2003
“Among the fundamental values linked to women's actual lives is what has been called a 'capacity for the other.' Although a certain type of feminist rhetoric makes demands 'for ourselves,' women preserve the deep intuition of the goodness in their lives of those actions which elicit life, and contribute to the growth and protection of the other. . . . But, in the final analysis, every human being, man or woman, is destined to be 'for the other.' . . . Therefore, the promotion of women within society must be understood and desired as a humanization accomplished through those values, rediscovered thanks to women. Every outlook which presents itself as a conflict between the sexes is only an illusion and a danger; it would end in segregation and competition between men and women, and would promote a solipsism nourished by a false conception of freedom.”
Pope Benedict XVI (1927–2022) first seen 2004 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Doctrinal document On the Collaboration of Men and Women in the Church and in the World, July 31, 2004
“There really is an ideological, secular aggressiveness that gives cause to worry. Recently in Sweden a Protestant parson was put into jail for one month because - referring to biblical texts - he preached about homosexuality. Laicism is not any longer that element of neutrality that opens fields of freedom for everybody. It’s now turning into an ideology, which – with the help of politics – forces itself into the public and leaves no space for the Christian and Catholic conception – thereby turning it into a merely private and essentially mutilated concern. In this sense a fight has really begun in which we have to defend the religious freedom against the pretension of an ideology, that acts as if it were the only voice of reason – whereas it is only the expression of “a certain” rationalism.... A society that is not at all concerned with God destroys itself. We saw that in the totalitarian experiments of the last century.”
Pope Benedict XVI (1927–2022) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: in an interview in the German newspaper Die Welt, April 20, 2005
“Although the Holy Roman Empire had been in decline since the late Middle Ages, and it had faded also as a valid, undisputed interpretation of history, it was not until the French Revolution that the spiritual framework which it provided—and without which Europe could not have been formed—would shatter in a formal sense. The process had a major impact on both politics and ideals. In terms of ideals, there was a rejection of the sacred foundation both of history and of the state. History was no longer measured on the basis of an idea of God that had preceded and molded it. The state came to be understood in purely secular terms, as grounded in rationalism and the will of the citizens.”
Pope Benedict XVI (1927–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“At the hour of its greatest success, Europe seems hollow, as if it were internally paralyzed by a failure of its circulatory system that is endangering its life, subjecting it to transplants that erase its identity. At the same time as its sustaining spiritual forces have collapsed, a growing decline in its ethnicity is also taking place. Europe is infected by a strange lack of desire for the future. Children, our future, are perceived as a threat to the present, as if they were taking something away from our lives. Children are seen as a liability rather than as a source of hope. There is a clear comparison between today's situation and the decline of the Roman Empire.”
Pope Benedict XVI (1927–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In our contemporary society, thank goodness, anyone who dishonors the faith of Israel, its image of God, or its great figures must pay a fine. The same holds true for anyone who dishonors the Koran and the convictions of Islam. But when it comes to Jesus Christ and that which is sacred to Christians, instead, freedom of speech becomes the supreme good... This case illustrates a peculiar Western self-hatred that is nothing short of pathological. It is commendable that the West is trying to be more open, to be more understanding of the values of outsiders, but it has lost all capacity for self-love. All that it sees in its own history is the despicable and the destructive; it is no longer able to perceive what is great and pure. What Europe needs is a new self-acceptance, a self-acceptance that is critical and humble, if it truly wishes to survive.”
Pope Benedict XVI (1927–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The mysterious name of God, revealed from the burning bush, a name which separates this God from all other divinities with their many names and simply asserts being, "I am", already presents a challenge to the notion of myth, to which Socrates' attempt to vanquish and transcend myth stands in close analogy. Within the Old Testament, the process which started at the burning bush came to new maturity at the time of the Exile, when the God of Israel, an Israel now deprived of its land and worship, was proclaimed as the God of heaven and earth and described in a simple formula which echoes the words uttered at the burning bush: "I am". This new understanding of God is accompanied by a kind of enlightenment, which finds stark expression in the mockery of gods who are merely the work of human hands (cf. Ps 115). Thus, despite the bitter conflict with those Hellenistic rulers who sought to accommodate it forcibly to the customs and idolatrous cult of the Greeks, biblical faith, in the Hellenistic period, encountered the best of Greek thought at a deep level, resulting in a mutual enrichment evident especially in the later wisdom literature. Today we know that the Greek translation of the Old Testament produced at Alexandria - the Septuagint - is more than a simple (and in that sense really less than satisfactory) translation of the Hebrew text: it is an independent textual witness and a distinct and important step in the history of revelation, one which brought about this encounter in a way that was decisive for the birth and spread of Christianity. A profound encounter of faith and reason is taking place here, an encounter between genuine enlightenment and religion. From the very heart of Christian faith and, at the same time, the heart of Greek thought now joined to faith, Manuel II was able to say: Not to act "with logos" is contrary to God's nature.”
Pope Benedict XVI (1927–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Is the conviction that acting unreasonably contradicts God's nature merely a Greek idea, or is it always and intrinsically true? I believe that here we can see the profound harmony between what is Greek in the best sense of the word and the biblical understanding of faith in God. Modifying the first verse of the Book of Genesis, the first verse of the whole Bible, John began the prologue of his Gospel with the words: "In the beginning was the λόγος". This is the very word used by the emperor: God acts, σὺν λόγω, with logos. Logos means both reason and word - a reason which is creative and capable of self-communication, precisely as reason. John thus spoke the final word on the biblical concept of God, and in this word all the often toilsome and tortuous threads of biblical faith find their culmination and synthesis. In the beginning was the logos, and the logos is God, says the Evangelist. The encounter between the Biblical message and Greek thought did not happen by chance.”
Pope Benedict XVI (1927–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In a society, in a culture, which all too often make relativism its creed - relativism has become a sort of dogma - in such a society the light of truth is missing; indeed, it is considered dangerous and "authoritarian" to speak of truth, and the end result is doubt about the goodness of life - is it good to be a person? is it good to be alive? - and in the validity of the relationships and commitments in which it consists.Today, more than in the past, the education and formation of the person are influenced by the messages and general climate spread by the great means of communication and which are inspired by a mindset and culture marked by relativism, consumerism and a false and destructive exaltation, or rather, profanation, of the body and of sexuality.”
Pope Benedict XVI (1927–2022) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In a Speech of Benedict XVI at the Inauguration of the Convention of the Diocese of Rome, at the Basilica of Saint John Lateran (11 June 2007)
“Currently, I see in Germany, but also in the United States, a somewhat fierce debate raging between so-called "creationism" and evolutionism, presented as though they were mutually exclusive alternatives: those who believe in the Creator would not be able to conceive of evolution, and those who instead support evolution would have to exclude God. This antithesis is absurd because, on the one hand, there are so many scientific proofs in favour of evolution which appears to be a reality we can see and which enriches our knowledge of life and being as such. But on the other, the doctrine of evolution does not answer every query, especially the great philosophical question: where does everything come from? And how did everything start which ultimately led to man?”
Pope Benedict XVI (1927–2022) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: remarks at Auronzo di Cadore (24 July 2007)
“The capacity to accept suffering for the sake of goodness, truth and justice is an essential criterion of humanity, because if my own well-being and safety are ultimately more important than truth and justice, then the power of the stronger prevails, then violence and untruth reign supreme. Truth and justice must stand above my comfort and physical well-being, or else my life itself becomes a lie. In the end, even the “yes” to love is a source of suffering, because love always requires expropriations of my “I”, in which I allow myself to be pruned and wounded. Love simply cannot exist without this painful renunciation of myself, for otherwise it becomes pure selfishness and thereby ceases to be love.”
Pope Benedict XVI (1927–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Too often, though, the beauty that is thrust upon us is illusory and deceitful, superficial and blinding, leaving the onlooker dazed; instead of bringing him out of himself and opening him up to horizons of true freedom as it draws him aloft, it imprisons him within himself and further enslaves him, depriving him of hope and joy. It is a seductive but hypocritical beauty that rekindles desire, the will to power, to possess, and to dominate others, it is a beauty which soon turns into its opposite, taking on the guise of indecency, transgression or gratuitous provocation. Authentic beauty, however, unlocks the yearning of the human heart, the profound desire to know, to love, to go towards the Other, to reach for the Beyond.”
Pope Benedict XVI (1927–2022) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: in Meeting with Artists (21 November 2009)
“Love — caritas — is an extraordinary force which leads people to opt for courageous and generous engagement in the field of justice and peace. It is a force that has its origin in God, Eternal Love and Absolute Truth. Each person finds his good by adherence to God's plan for him, in order to realize it fully: in this plan, he finds his truth, and through adherence to this truth he becomes free (cf. Jn 8:32). To defend the truth, to articulate it with humility and conviction, and to bear witness to it in life are therefore exacting and indispensable forms of charity. Charity, in fact, “rejoices in the truth” (1 Cor 13:6).”
Pope Benedict XVI (1927–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Only in truth does charity shine forth, only in truth can charity be authentically lived. Truth is the light that gives meaning and value to charity. That light is both the light of reason and the light of faith, through which the intellect attains to the natural and supernatural truth of charity: it grasps its meaning as gift, acceptance, and communion. Without truth, charity degenerates into sentimentality. Love becomes an empty shell, to be filled in an arbitrary way. In a culture without truth, this is the fatal risk facing love. It falls prey to contingent subjective emotions and opinions, the word “love” is abused and distorted, to the point where it comes to mean the opposite. Truth frees charity from the constraints of an emotionalism that deprives it of relational and social content, and of a fideism that deprives it of human and universal breathing-space.”
Pope Benedict XVI (1927–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Church does not have technical solutions to offer and does not claim “to interfere in any way in the politics of States.” She does, however, have a mission of truth to accomplish, in every time and circumstance, for a society that is attuned to man, to his dignity, to his vocation. Without truth, it is easy to fall into an empiricist and sceptical view of life, incapable of rising to the level of praxis because of a lack of interest in grasping the values — sometimes even the meanings — with which to judge and direct it. Fidelity to man requires fidelity to the truth, which alone is the guarantee of freedom (cf. Jn 8:32) and of the possibility of integral human development. For this reason the Church searches for truth, proclaims it tirelessly and recognizes it wherever it is manifested. This mission of truth is something that the Church can never renounce. Her social doctrine is a particular dimension of this proclamation: it is a service to the truth which sets us free. Open to the truth, from whichever branch of knowledge it comes, the Church's social doctrine receives it, assembles into a unity the fragments in which it is often found, and mediates it within the constantly changing life-patterns of the society of peoples and nations”
Pope Benedict XVI (1927–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source