Roman Catholic Bishops

"Catechesis must be experiential, a true accompaniment in the experience of God, not a schooled catechesis where only an indoctrination or a teaching of knowledge is received."

"I love my ministry, I love being a diocesan bishop and I cherished my time living in community as a monk. When you follow your heart and learn what God wants you to do, you find peace."

"Every man is born with an inherent impulse toward freedom and toward the search for truth which should lead, ultimately, to love, but to achieve true freedom, it is necessary to remove all obstacles such as prejudice, distorted views, hate, anger, greed, which leads to corruption. This means that reconciliation with others is a prerequisite to attain true freedom."

"The Bible is the Good News of salvation, which comes to all those who are open to it."

"I personally think that when we make decisions it is better to err on the side of an excess of generosity, instead of rigidity."

"More than tolerance, we must stress citizenship."

"We should suffer a lot today that so many depart from Christ that they disregard His Gospel that they slam the door to the Church behind them. Our faith today, our spiritual sensitivity, must therefore be similar to the wounded body of Jesus, because there is some divine act in it and a sign of our little, not great grace, since today we often lose the fight for the souls of the young generation, when today we are unable to effectively and concretely prevent family breakdown, that we are divided and often unbelievable towards the world, that although we help the needy, we often do it somehow in a chaotic manner."

"You can't build peace if you're not educated in peace and if you don't educate peace. Because peace is a mature fruit with many aspects to it. It doesn't come as a spontaneous reaction. Often building peace means first overcoming many difficulties: tensions, problems, diverse positions. So without training, without peace education that involves feelings and thought processes, peace won't get built. Or it may get built, but on very shaky foundations. There's no peace without peace education."

"Catholic Schools operate in all the different geographical areas, even those where there is no religious freedom, or which are socially and economically most disadvantaged, with an astonishing capacity to meet emergencies and formative needs, despite at times, great difficulties."

"Parents have failed in their parenting responsibility: both in educating their children and in defending them. They will now appreciate the role of the teachers, who constantly counsel these girls and safeguard them from vicious predators."

"It is not just a question of education, but through it, the consumer will also make those industries benefit. If you look at all the things the young people will consume, the question is who benefits from this?"

"Transform life of others by highlighting the plight of the poor in the community so that people can volunteer to support. Be Agents who can help in gathering information that is very much different from the secular media."

"If our children are destroyed at a tender age, then as a society and country we will suffer."

"God bless you for providing me this opportunity to join you in upholding the principles of pastoral ministry as found in the Gospels."

"Please stop with this situation! Our society is declining every day. As long as we endure this situation, how will our poor society end?"

"Above all, our service requires a passion for unity and a love for the Church as it was founded by Christ and as He wanted it. This passion drives us to continuous study, it permits us to learn through experience, to explore possible new paths, as well as to exercise the virtue of patience since the times are not ours but are the Holy Spirit's."

"Local Catholics are living in conditions of great danger — the terrorists are doing what they like and shooting at people indiscriminately. People can do nothing but stay at home and await better times, like everyone else. In places where there’s shooting, the Catholic and Orthodox churches have simply stopped functioning."

"If we have the faith very strong in the Word of God and in the Providence of God, we Christians and Muslims also, according to their religion, this faith is what keeps us alive."

"Christ's presence among men takes place primarily through the Eucharist."

"The celebration of the new Christian Millenium is a very important event in Ethiopia, as it defines one of the characteristics of the national identity."

"It is necessary to promote in the faithful the sense of responsibility and participation for a better awareness and a greater commitment to contribute to the life of the ecclesial community. In Israel, the Catholic Church of the Latin rite, as well as various parishes celebrating in Arabic, is present with a community in Hebrew that is rather composite and even variable, since many migrants of different origins are part of it. Pastorally and socially it appears lively as well as growing. It can be said that it is a highly symbolic reality, representing the Church of Christ within His people. The Catholic communities of the Melkite, Maronite, Greek-Catholic, Syrian-Catholic and Armenian rites that exist in Israel and Palestine also face the challenge of the dwindling number of the faithful and clergy as well as the scarcity of resources. They express the richness of faith, of liturgy, of the identity of the Christian East that must be protected. Moreover, being part of the Catholic Church as such, they are faithful to the Holy Father and attest to the universality of the Church of Christ, not only geographically but also in temporal terms, referring to the origins of the Church that is present in the Holy Land in a peculiar way with various rites of equal dignity."

"The Church is the mother, so she needs all her children and in particular those who are young because they are the present moment of the Church and the present moment of our society and the world."

"Between now and January be innovative and create a job. Think outside a box. What can you do to earn your living? There are 1001 ways. So, teachers please make use of your knowledge."

"Go to Church to thank the Lord for another year. The people should understand the difference between what is necessary and what only satisfies a whim."

"Our health care policy must honor all human life and dignity from conception to natural death, as well as defend the sincerely-held moral and religious beliefs of those who have any role in the health care system."

"Faith is believing God. Faith in something bigger than we can understand. Faith means that at some point you arrive and you turn yourself over to something that's more than you can know, comprehend and be."

"If I knew with moral certitude that this is a sin, maybe I would not have put myself in that condition. But now I already find myself there: How can I go back? It is one thing to begin, another to interrupt."

"A divided Church is against the will of Jesus Christ and is anti-missionary and anti-evangelizing. We should use every means possible, such as prayer, to fulfill Jesus' will. Loving the Church, for priests, means realizing that this is not going well. We need to maintain Christ's spirit and bear witness to unity."

"The celebration of these 53 years is a time to strengthen our commitment to the transmission of faith. It is important that the Church continues to celebrate history and 53 years are to remember and celebrate and from there continue the journey of announcing the Christian message, not only focusing on the work that the bishops have done but also going out to others."

"Dialogue is not the crucial game changing focus anymore. Instead, reconciliation should be the key. The conflict between the protesters and the police, the dissatisfaction towards the performance of the government must be addressed. It is apparent that we must try out best to heal the soul and body of our younger generation. Please do not ask me how to heal the young souls. I really do not know how can that be done without the intervention from the Holy Spirit."

"Feeling sad, helpless and sometimes even furious is not unusual. However, we must prevent sadness developing into hopelessness, prevent anger turning into hatred."

"I think humility is certainly essential. When we lack humility, that leads to things like clericalism and presenting as someone who doesn't listen. I’m a relatively shy person. I think it's inherent in my family. But I realize I have to sometimes get out there and I need to speak and be in front of the public. I just hope that I can be as genuine as possible, that what you see is what you get. But humility, I think praying for humility, is something that we always need to do. Humility is what leads us into understanding that it’s not what we do, it’s what the Lord is doing in us and for us."

"We're facing the laïcité of the state in its most unfair expression, and I believe the Catholics will remember that."

"It is different when you meet the families of victims up close, when you see the faces, when you get to know the names. On television, they are just statistics. Numbers don't move people. It is faces and real identities that move us."

"They say you should be happy the government is controlling criminality and getting rid of drug addicts. That shocks me because we are supposed to be a predominantly Catholic country. So when I deal with this kind of mentality, which is so contrary to the values of being a Christian, I say we are also to blame for not having communicated Christian values, the Christian faith very well."

"As a bishop, I will not stop in making moves to reach the consciences of people, despite my own shortcomings as a person and as a bishop, despite our shortcomings too as an institution."

"Let us come to meet the Pope with open hearts and joyful spirits; proud, dignified and eager to hear his words of inspiration."

"It is a crime to kill the innocent, whether in Jasenovac or in Bleiburg."

"Be brave and admit what happened and repent. All of you who know something should help, all of you who participated here. Help this nation finally arrive at the whole truth, which liberates."

"I like to interact with the pilgrims. I am their bishop, but above all I will be a pilgrim among them."

"We have a commitment — our city of Lima and our entire coast — to our Amazon region."

"I believe that Peru's great illness is individualism, partly caused by a liberalist culture that followed the Fujimori dictatorship, preventing the emergence of a network of grassroots organizations, often called "intermediate bodies". But individualism has also penetrated our faith. Basically, "saving my soul" has emerged as the main objective. Yet this is also what the evangelicals say. In public life attention was given to nascent life, to the fight against abortion, but not to an idea of community, of building a future together. For this reason I firmly believe that this pandemic is a challenge to individualism, and, at the same time, to both our pastoral work and to politics."

"Our faith is counter-cultural to the American ideal of individualism. We are a part of the universality founded in Christ and thus a part of a larger, single family-the people of God. The care of our common home does not fall in step with individualism. God asks us to think about ourselves in relationship to God and thus in relationship to our immediate family and our extended family throughout the world."

"We must thank God for all the benefits which have come from the Ugandan martyrs. May these African ancestors of ours obtain for us the love that has spread the Christian faith."

"We have to communicate: we don't want to force, even though we have a right to establish a building, because what we want is a peaceful situation."

"To find a way through dialogue the answer to the legitimate aspirations of the people of Syria in a way which also gives guarantees to all its components for a better society. Of course the situation in Syria depends also on the balance of powers in the region and the good will of the international community as a whole. We know that there is a new distribution of powers in this region and so if there is not the presence of all the actors internationally, regionally and locally, there will be no answer to the situation in Syria."

"Political leaders will have to listen to us, because religious leaders represent the wishes, hopes, desires, values of the entire population of Thailand. Dialogue is the only way possible. We are convinced that this is the time: religions can commit themselves. To Buddhists, who are sometimes skeptical about this type of action, we say: this does not mean to go in politics, but help a process of dialogue and act on the conscience of our political leaders."

"Canonization, which everyone admits does not derive directly from faith, is never an actual definition relating to faith or tradition."

"As priests we give thanks to the Lord for our calling. It's always a tremendous joy when we are able to help others in need, in pain, in difficulty, those who are suffering. As priests we must always make ourselves available to the people we are called to serve. That's a quality that people in parishes very much appreciate. We must make ourselves available. We give thanks to God for the good we have achieved in our ministry and with His help, we thank him for the good we will continue to do, for His people, to whom we are called to serve."

"Francis arrives with a wealth of experience in this regard. Latin America has an edge when it comes to synodality; the ‘Theology of the People of God’ is central to Latin American ecclesiology, where the hierarchy is at the service of the people of God. [...] The Holy Father is convinced that the path for the Church of the future is synodal: all the people of God must find a way to walk together because they bring with them the richness of the Holy Spirit, and only together will we be able to discern his voice."