Pope Francis Church Quotations

There is nothing the Church can do except try to educate people to become good consumers.

The Church's challenge is staying close to the people, close to the people of the United States, not being a detached Church from the people but close to them, close, close, and this is something that the Church in the United States has understood and understood well.

Integrating in the Church doesn't mean receiving communion.

In the Western Church to which I belong, priests cannot be married as in the Byzantine, Ukrainian, Russian or Greek Catholic Churches. In those churches, the priests can be married, but the bishops have to be celibate. They are very good priests.

You tell me: Can you live crushed under the weight of the present? Without a memory of the past and without the desire to look ahead to the future by building something, a future, a family? Can you go on like this? This, to me, is the most urgent problem that the Church is facing.

Leaders of the Church have often been Narcissus, flattered and sickeningly excited by their courtiers. The court is the leprosy of the papacy.

We need to avoid the spiritual sickness of a church that is wrapped up in its own world: when a church becomes like this, it grows sick.

The Church needs you, your enthusiasm, your creativity and the joy that is so characteristic of you.

The Church is called to draw near to every person, beginning with the poorest and those who suffer.

It is necessary to broaden the opportunities for a stronger presence of women in the church.

The cry of a baby is God's voice: never drive them away from the church!

Oh, how I would like a poor Church, and for the poor.

We are a church of sinners but we must not be afraid of holiness. Do not be afraid to aim for holiness and turn yourselves over to the love of God. Holiness does not mean performing extraordinary things but carrying out daily things in an extraordinary way that is with love, joy and faith.

You can't have Christ without the Church,

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.

Let the Church always be a place of mercy and hope, where everyone is welcomed, loved and forgiven.

Spiritual worldliness kills! It kills the soul! It kills the Church!

Politics, according to the Social Doctrine of the Church, is one of the highest forms of charity, because it serves the common good. I cannot wash my hands, eh? We all have to give something!

We see that there are two worms that eat the fabric of the Church, weakening Her. Rivalry and vainglory go against this harmony, this agreement.

The Church, in her wisdom, maintains the distinction between engaged and married couples -- they are not the same, today's culture and society have become rather indifferent to the delicate and serious nature of this passage.

Those called to the service of governance in the church need to have a strong sense of justice, so that any form of injustice becomes unacceptable.

The Church is the home that accepts everyone and refuses no one ... the greater the sin, the greater the love that the Church should show towards those who convert.

It is better to have a Church that is wounded but out in the streets than a Church that is sick because it is closed in on itself.

It is important to integrate immigrants into society and to welcome them in the church community

Babies cry, make noise, go here and there. But it annoys me when a baby cries in church and there are those who say he needs to go out. The cry of a baby is God's voice: never drive them away from the church!

The time has come for the Church to take up the joyful call to mercy once more. It is time to return to the basics and to bear the weaknesses and struggles of our brothers and sisters. Mercy is the force that reawakens us to new life and instils in us the courage to look to the future with hope.

Such self-denial 'may appear demanding,' but it will allow you, so to speak, to be and to breathe within the heart of the church.

I dream of a church that is a mother and shepherdess.

You may be poor yourselves in material ways, but you have an abundance of gifts to offer when you offer Christ and the community of his Church.

The parish is the presence of the Church in any given territory, an environment for hearing God's word, for growth in Christian life, for dialogue, proclamation, charitable outreach, worship and celebration.

We can walk when we want to, we can build many things, but if we do not witness to Jesus Christ then it doesn't matter. We might become a philanthropic NGO but we wouldn't be the Church, the Bride of the Lord.

For her part, the Church always works for the integral development of every person. In this sense, she reiterates that the common good should not be simply an extra, simply a conceptual scheme of inferior quality tacked onto political programmes. The Church encourages those in power to be truly at the service of the common good of their peoples.

Being Christian without the Church doesn't make sense. That's why the great Paul VI, said that the most absurd dichotomy is loving Christ without the Church. To listen to Christ, but not the Church. To be with Christ, but stay at the margins of the Church. It's not possible. It's an absurd dichotomy.

The 'Church' is ... catholic because her communion embraces the whole human race.

I would like a more missionary church,Not so much a tranquil church, but a beautiful church that goes forward.

The church does not need apologists of its causes nor crusaders of its battles, but sowers humble and confident of the truth, who ... trust of its power

All Catholics must ask themselves what they personally have done lately to build up the holiness of the church and ensure people feel welcomed and loved in it.

This concern for the poor is in the Gospel, it is within the tradition of the Church, it is not an invention of communism and it must not be turned into an ideology, as has sometimes happened before in the course of history.

We also try to reach out to people who are far away, via digital means, the web and brief messaging.

The Church is a mother, not an entrepreneur.

Our Christian identity is belonging to a people: the Church. Without the Church we are not Christians.

Mercy is the very foundation of the Church's life...The Church's very credibility is seen in how she shows merciful and compassionate love...Mercy is the force that reawakens us to new life and instills in us the courage to look to the future with hope.

In this Year of Faith, we pray to the Lord that the Church may always be a true family that brings God’s love to everyone.

Let us never give in to pessimism, to that bitterness that the devil offers us every day. Do not give in to pessimism and discouragement. We have the firm certainty that the Holy Spirit gives the Church with His mighty breath, the courage to persevere and also to seek new methods of evangelization, to bring the Gospel to the ends of the earth.

We cannot be tepid disciples. The Church needs our courage in order to give witness to truth.

On the ordination of women, the church has spoken and said no. John Paul II, in a definitive formulation said that door is closed.

Instead of being just a church that welcomes and receives by keeping the doors open, let us try also to be a church that finds new roads, that is able to step outside itself and go to those who do not attend Mass, to those who have quit or are indifferent.

I see the church as a field hospital after battle. It is useless to ask a seriously injured person if he has high cholesterol and about the level of his blood sugars. You have to heal his wounds. Then we can talk about everything else.

In the Church, and in the journey of faith, women have had and still have a special role in opening doors to the Lord.

We must not reduce the bosom of the universal church to a nest protecting our mediocrity.

Inconsistency on the part of pastors and the faithful between what they say and what they do, between word and manner of life, is undermining the Church's credibility.

Dear young people, the Church expects great things of you and your generosity. Don’t be afraid to aim high.

May every Church and Christian community be a place of mercy amid so much indifference.

I would like that all of us, after these days of grace, might have the courage - the courage - to walk in the presence of the Lord, with the Cross of the Lord: to build the Church on the Blood of the Lord, which is shed on the Cross, and to profess the one glory, Christ Crucified. In this way, the Church will go forward.

Vanity, showing off, is an attitude that reduces spirituality to a worldly thing, which is the worst sin that could be committed in the church.

The Church in the Philippines is called to acknowledge and combat the causes of the deeply rooted inequality and injustice which mar the face of Filipino society, plainly contradicting the teaching of Christ.

Religious life ought to promote growth in the Church by way of attraction. The Church must be attractive. Wake up the world! Be witnesses of a different way of doing things, of acting, of living! It is possible to live differently in this world.

Let's pray for whole world that there be brotherhood. I hope this journey of the church we begin today is fruitful for evangelization.

I want the Church to go out onto the streets, I want us to resist everything worldly, everything static, everything comfortable...eve rything that might make us closed in on ourselves.

Let us never forget that it is the Lord who guides the Church. He is the one who makes our apostolates fruitful.

The thing the Church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful.

I want to see the church get closer to the people. I want to get rid of clericalism, the mundane, this closing ourselves off within ourselves, in our parishes, schools or structures. Because these need to get out!

The one thing that the Catholic Church desires, and that I seek as Bishop of Rome, “the Church which presides in charity”, is communion with the Orthodox Churches.

Art in the Church fundamentally exists for evangelization

The Philippines bear witness to the youthfulness and vitality of the Church.