Popes

"The fact that the church is convinced of not having the right to confer priestly ordination on women is now considered by some as irreconcilable with the European Constitution."

"We can be sure our beloved pope is standing today at the window of the father's house, that he sees us and blesses us. Yes, bless us, Holy Father. We entrust your dear soul to the Mother of God, your Mother, who guided you each day and who will now guide you to the glory of her son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.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."

"How much filth there is in the Church, even among those who, in the priesthood, should belong entirely to Him. How much pride, how much self-sufficiency."

"In the hour of its greatest success, Europe seems to have become empty inside, paralyzed by a life-threatening crisis to its health and dependent on transplants."

"I would not like to use big words to apply generic labels. It certainly contains elements that can favor peace, it also has other elements: we must always seek the best elements."

"Because God loves us, because He wants us to grow into truth, He must necessarily make demands on us and must also correct us"

"Above all, we must have great respect for these people who also suffer and who want to find their own way of correct living. On the other hand, to create a legal form of a kind of homosexual marriage, in reality, does not help these people."

"Men and women were created to be jointly the guarantee of the future of the humanity — not only a physical guarantee, but also a moral one."

"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."

"The obscuring of the difference or duality of the sexes has enormous consequences on a variety of levels. This theory of the human person, intended to promote prospects for equality of women through liberation from biological determinism, has in reality inspired ideologies which, for example, call into question the family, in its natural two-parent structure of mother and father, and make homosexuality and heterosexuality virtually equivalent, in a new model of polymorphous sexuality."

"A Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil, and so unworthy to present himself for holy Communion, if he were to deliberately vote for a candidate precisely because of the candidate's permissive stand on abortion and/or euthanasia. When a Catholic does not share a candidate's stand in favor of abortion and/or euthanasia, but votes for that candidate for other reasons, it is considered remote material cooperation, which can be permitted in the presence of proportionate reasons."

"I think the essential point is a weakness of faith."

"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."

"In the United States, there is constant news on this topic, but less than 1 percent of priests are guilty of acts of this type. The constant presence of these news items does not correspond to the objectivity of the information nor to the statistical objectivity of the facts."

"In the Church, priests also are sinners. But I am personally convinced that the constant presence in the press of the sins of Catholic priests, especially in the United States, is a planned campaign, as the percentage of these offenses among priests is not higher than in other categories, and perhaps it is even lower."

"It is true that the Muslim world is not totally mistaken when it reproaches the West of Christian tradition of moral decadence and the manipulation of human life. … Islam has also had moments of great splendor and decadence in the course of its history."

"Unspontaneity is of their essence. In these rites I discover that something is approaching me here that I did not produce myself, that I am entering into something greater than myself, which ultimately derives from divine revelation. This is why the Christian East calls the liturgy the "Divine Liturgy", expressing thereby the liturgy's independence from human control."

"Wherever applause breaks out in the liturgy because of some human achievement, it is a sure sign that the essence of liturgy has totally disappeared and been replaced by a kind of religious entertainment. Such attraction fades quickly - it cannot compete in the market of leisure pursuits, incorporating as it increasingly does various forms of religious titillation."

"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."

"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."

""Rock" [music]... is the expression of elemental passions, and at rock festivals it assumes a cultic character, a form of worship, in fact, in opposition to Christian worship. People are, so to speak, released from themselves by the experience of being part of a crowd and by the emotional shock of rhythm, noise, and special lighting effects. However, in the ecstasy of having all their defenses torn down, the participants sink, as it were, beneath the elemental force of the universe."

"Deeper understanding of the matter is bound to recognize that the Temple, as well as the synagogue, entered into Christian liturgy."

"Our Christian conviction is that Christ is also the messiah of Israel. Certainly it is in the hands of God how and when the unification of Jews and Christians into the people of God will take place."

"That the Jews are connected with God in a special way and that God does not allow that bond to fail is entirely obvious. We wait for the instant in which Israel will say yes to Christ, but we know that it has a special mission in history now … which is significant for the world."

"The ecclesial communities which have not preserved the valid Episcopate and the genuine and integral substance of the Eucharistic mystery, are not Churches in the proper sense; however, those who are baptized in these communities are, by Baptism, incorporated in Christ and thus are in a certain communion, albeit imperfect, with the Church."

"Unlimited trust should only be placed in the real Word of the Revelation that we encounter in the faith transmitted by the Church."

"Islam has a total organization of life that is completely different from ours; it embraces simply everything. There is a very marked subordination of woman to man; there is a very tightly knit criminal law, indeed, a law regulating all areas of life, that is opposed to our modern ideas about society. One has to have a clear understanding that it is not simply a denomination that can be included in the free realm of a pluralistic society."

"Celibacy is not a matter of compulsion. Someone is accepted as a priest only when he does it of his own accord."

"The renunciation of marriage and family is thus to be understood in terms of this vision: I renounce what, humanly speaking, is not only the most normal but also the most important thing. I forgo bringing forth further life on the tree of life, and I live in the faith that my land is really God - and so I make it easier for others, also, to believe that there is a kingdom of heaven. I bear witness to Jesus Christ, to the Gospel, not only with words, but also with this specific mode of existence, and I place my life in this form at his disposal."

"We have such difficulty understanding this renunciation today because the relationship to marriage and children has clearly shifted. To have to die without children was once synonymous with a useless life: The echoes of my own life die away, and I am completely dead. If I have children, then I continue to live in them; it's a sort of immortality through posterity. ..."

"I think we must reflect more on what democracy in the exercise of authority would mean. Is truth determined by a majority vote, only for a new 'truth' to be 'discovered' by a new majority tomorrow?"

"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'."

"It is deplorable that homosexual persons have been and are the object of violent malice in speech or in action. Such treatment deserves condemnation from the church's pastors wherever it occurs... The intrinsic dignity of each person must always be respected in work, in action and in law."

"Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered to an intrinsic moral evil, and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder."

"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."

"By the time John Paul II was elected to the papacy in 1978, he had followed several vocations and avocations-student, laborer in a stone quarry, actor, playwright, philologist, seminarian, mystic, pastor and philosopher. These gave him a particularly rich background for the work he was destined to do in the Church. Not only did he develop his formidable intellectual gifts through teaching in philosophy and moral theology, but he gained invaluable experience of ordinary life through work during the war as a laborer and in a different way as a parish priest and youth counselor. He acquired a deep respect for manual labor and the dignity of the ordinary man. So he wrote in a poem called ‘Participation: How splendid these men, no airs, no graces, I know you, look into your hearts, No pretense stands between us, Some hands are for toil, some for the cross."

"The American intelligence agencies strengthened contact with political dissenters in eastern Europe. Agents brought messages of support and helped to publicise cases of official abuse. They also brought money. Ronald Reagan, President from 1980 to 1988, wanted to do what he could to pull down the Iron Curtain shrouding eastern Europe. He had an ally in Pope John Paul II, who as Karol Wojtyła had been Archbishop of Kraków until 1978. In the past it had been difficult for rebels against communism to subsist without gainful employment because the authorities might bring charges of ‘parasitism’. The CIA and the Vatican got to work at offering discreet assistance. Informal bodies, some of them being tiny in membership and short of funds, were doing the same. This was exactly what the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was doing to help the world communist movement. Thus, as dollars arrived in Rome from Moscow, dollars departed Rome and Washington for Warsaw. The finance helped, but it was not the crucial factor in weakening communism in eastern Europe. If money had been the key to political change, Italy would long ago have acquired a communist government (and the Pope would have been ejected from the Vatican). Financial subventions could only accelerate an existing motion. The same had been true in 1917: ‘German gold’ had been an aid to the Bolsheviks in preparing to seize power but nothing like the main resource at their disposal."

"Pope John Paul II was received in Israel with enthusiasm that sometimes bordered on the excitement generally reserved for pop stars. He radiated warmth. Pope Benedict XVI, in contrast, comes across as restrained, almost cold."

"Cardinal Sandri: At one point, John Paul II was unable to speak because he had undergone a tracheotomy. A speech therapist was called in to help the Pontiff practise, as he had to learn how to use his voice and articulate words again. Journalist: The image of John Paul II trying to speak at the Angelus on 30 March 2005 and not being able to do so remains etched in the collective memory... Cardinal Sandri: He had done his exercises, rehearsed the text, and when he appeared at the window, perhaps due to emotion, his voice failed him, and this caused him great suffering. But all this was ultimately the result of Parkinson's, a degenerative disease that had made it increasingly difficult for him to speak and could only get worse."

"Shame on you, Mr. Bush, shame on you! And any time you got the Pope and the Dixie Chicks against you, your time is up."

"When the Pope's mother died, and one day his father took him here to Kalwaria and he pointed to the shire of our lady, to the picture of our lady of Kalwaria and he said Karol, from now on, she will be your mother, and he took it so seriously. He came here and he talked to her like he was talk to his earthly mum."

"The present Pope is a man I hold in high regard. To begin with, our somewhat similar backgrounds give us an immediate common ground. The first time we met, he struck me as a very practical sort of person, very broad-minded and open. I have no doubt he is a great spiritual leader. Any man who can call out "Brother" to his would-be assassin, as Pope John Paul did, must be a highly evolved spiritual practicioner."

"When Pope John Paul II kissed the ground at the Warsaw airport he began the process by which communism in Poland – and ultimately elsewhere in Europe – would come to an end."

"I was on the terrace of the Secretariat of State, with colleagues and Archbishop Agostino Casaroli. His first line was: "Never would I have thought that the conclave would choose a cardinal from a diocese beyond the Iron Curtain!" We all asked him many questions, and Casaroli explained that he was a "man of vision". He concluded: he will bring novelty, but he will be a good Pope."

"Early in the Pope's reign he had a close ally in US President Ronald Reagan, both determined to end communism and support family values. Now President George W. Bush, a born again Christian, is reviving the alliance. He's pleased the Pope by stopping US aid for foreign organisations the US considers as promoting abortion, and by cutting off 34 million dollars of funding for the United Nations Population Fund and its family planning programmes. In Rome the ailing John Paul is still leading the fight, clearly frail but creating new saints, enforcing church doctrine and appointing new cardinals who will continue his work. But since the early days of his reign the world has been facing a new and terrible crisis."

"As well as sympathetic doubters there have been harsh critics of John Paul's vision of love and responsibility. On their view, he is a man who had never been close to a woman and so fell victim not to ideals but to stereotypes. A vision of women always defined by their reproductive powers –mother, wife, temptress. Perhaps the Pope's most powerful opponent for many years was Nafis Sadik, former head of the United Nations Population Fund. She had a face to face meeting with the Pope in 1994 to discuss women's rights and church teaching."

"In 1960, now a bishop, he wrote an astonishingly frank book about love and marriage. It suggested that for a married man and woman: "climax must be reached in harmony" though he did add: "as far as possible." But although this was the age of the pill, Wojtyla also condemned contraception, pills, IUDs and condoms: "All immoral he said. All harmful for the health." Incredibly as it now seems, the Vatican almost endorsed the pill in the 60s, after all, there was no explicit ban on contraction in the Bible. But the then Pope, Paul VIth, received a gift from Krakow's Karol Wojtyla, a report attacking contraception and promoting natural family planning. The dismay of liberal Catholics, Pope Paul VIth using arguments Wojtyla had advocated, reaffirmed the ban on contraception. Karol Wojtyla, who'd been made Cardinal by a grateful Paul VIth, had stood against the tide of Catholic opinion and won. And once elected Pope, 25 years ago this week, he would use his extraordinary popularity to stand against the tide of world opinion, condemning contraction and the trend to legalise abortion."

"John Paul's thought and writing would be haunted by this image of perfect motherhood. As a young priest Karol Wojtyla studied in Krakow, a city at once modern and medieval; critics say – like his thinking. He took a special interest in the philosophy of love, the family, marriage and sex. He gave friends and students in his flock advice on relationships."

"But trying to stop all abortions is just one way the Vatican is trying to impose its sexual values across the world. It's a campaign that draws passion and motivation from the Pope from Poland, John Paul II, and a vision of womanhood rooted in his personal history. In Kalwaria, close to the Pope's home town. They're setting off on a burial, the burial of the Virgin Mary. 74 years ago, this ceremony helped shape the Pope's vision of womanhood. The effigy, carried miles to its final resting place. Out of devotion to the ultimate mother. For John Paul, the virgin was to be the image of the ideal woman, a mother to all, and to him when, aged 8, he lost his own mother."

"Imagine a land in which ideal love is a reality and ideal sex; simultaneous climax between a loving couple, and in this land all couples are married. No barriers to perfect self-giving; no barriers to childbirth; no condoms, IUDs or pills. Abortion is illegal too. This land does not exist, but these ideals do in the work and thought of Karol Wojtyla, now Pope John Paul II. This is a film about what happens when those ideals clash with reality."