Vatican Quotations

'The Fifth Gospel' is set entirely inside the Vatican and told from the perspective of a Catholic priest. I'm not Catholic myself, yet authenticity and factual accuracy are very important to me, so the novel required an enormous amount of research.

I was raised Catholic at a time when Vatican II was just taking hold.

The Vatican has to strike a difficult balance between running a country and running a religious institution.

Francis seems familiar because Catholics have already known him in the Vatican II priests who have been their pastors and sacramental ministers over the years since that council brought new life to an old church. Catholics have known him in the bishops and priests who brought the spirit of the council to their dioceses and parishes.

Venice has always fascinated me. Every country in Europe then was run by kings and the Vatican except Venice, which was basically run by councils. I've always wondered why.

The Vatican is like a huge kind of magician's club. The more you look into it the more awful it becomes. And they're laughing at us. That's when I get angry.

There was only one decline in church attendance, and that was in the late 1960s when the Vatican said it was not a sin to miss Mass. They said Catholics could act like Protestants, and so they did.

From his first hours as pope, Francis has re-enacted or spoken of the great pastoral transformation of Vatican II as his own agenda.

We are at the start of the 21st century and there are many risks in the world and we think that collaboration between Russia and the Vatican corresponds to the common good,

We have repeated our position on relations with the Vatican many times. There is no change in our position.

The real debate around this witch hunt isnt between us and the Vatican, its between the Vatican and the truth,

When you compare him with his predecessor, who took the Vatican by storm and the world by storm, this is a much more low-key papacy to date.

O'Brien is well-connected and probably knows what the thinking in Rome is, ... Officially, he's not speaking for the Vatican, but he's not speaking out of tune with the Vatican either.

Frank is definitely not a keeping-the-seat-warm kind of figure. I've known Frank fairly well for six years. I wouldn't use the term 'rising star,' but in the world of the Vatican he is very highly thought of ... he's someone who could be an archbishop someday.

We can establish diplomatic relations with the Vatican very soon if the two principles are accepted. But it is very hard for us to do so if the two principles are violated.

I agree mainland China's situation is different. The Vatican may make concessions and let China give its opinion, but it won't let Beijing have total say.

I think Catholic Americans had better believe there's truth in all religions, because the Second Vatican Council said that. We don't believe that we have a monopoly on truth. We believe what we have is true, but it's not the whole truth. And we can learn a lot from the other religions if we listen to them respectfully.

I think that the Vatican is in a deep crisis of faith which they should be praying for. They don't trust theologians, they don't trust women, they don't trust gays and they don't trust nature. The rest of us who do and who are looking for answers should just get on with the work.

Law's very prominent presence in the Vatican this week is reopening a lot of old wounds,

Just as he lived on his own terms, advocating for the rights of human beings, the rights of those who were forgotten or ignored, from victims of rape in Africa, to the homeless on streets worldwide, he chose to move into a more abundant life, not from a hospital bed, but from his home in Vatican City. Today I, along with so many Americans, continue to pray for Pope John Paul II.

I sang 'O Holy Night' with the Vatican orchestra, but also a Blake - a lullaby that William Blake wrote for the Christ child, and I set it to music, and the Vatican orchestra played the music.

My wife expects me to be on a plane to Rome for the CBS screening of the CBS TV movie about Pope John Paul . The screening is at the Vatican on the 17th, and I've got to be on the plane on the 16th, so I'm hoping we can conclude the deal by the 15th, which is deadline, so I can please Hideki and please my wife ? and meet the pope.

That will be between the Vatican and the Israeli government,

The problem is authority. But these Vatican officials seem unable to understand authority except as authoritarianism.

This year was definitely more open than the bad old days, but the door was only open a crack. In the old days, I felt like I was outside of the Vatican waiting for the white smoke instead of waiting for the budget.

Undoubtedly it's historic ... The feeling that the Vatican itself is leading the way to all of the believers all over the world in changing the attitude towards Judaism and Jewish people.

Vatican II and the Space/Information Age began in the same eye blink of history, with John XXIII's opening speech of Vatican II on Oct. 11, 1962, following John F. Kennedy's call for a round trip to the moon a month earlier.

What the Vatican is to the Catholics, Ten Chimneys is to actors.

Rush Limbaugh, we expect nonsense from him. But the Vatican, that's another story. When the Vatican is so threatened that it launches attacks on nuns, well, you know what they say in politics, a hit dog hollers.

St. Pope John XXIII called for the Second Vatican Council because he understood, as no Holy Father had in a long time, religion spoke to and found its language and symbols - its entire sense of the sacramental nature of existence - in the imagination that reveals not just the penalties of living, but the wonder and awe of our existence.

That shows the Vatican has no understanding of sexuality or homosexuality.

Thirty years ago, before the Vatican Council, Catholics didn't know what liturgy was.

They said they have no intelligence, and I don't believe that, ... The Vatican refuses totally to cooperate with us.

Above and beyond giving a mea culpa, John Paul II will attempt to frame what the church means by a mea culpa. His belief that the church strengthens itself through a frank acknowledgment of past sins is a remarkable thing. But the Vatican is also being careful to make clear that this isn't simply a spectacular act of self-flagellation before hostile outsiders; it's about the church's need to express regret and ask for God's pardon rather than to satisfy outsiders.

It was in that bubble after Vatican II when it seemed like the best time ever to grow up Catholic. It was a time when the church was so connected to the world.

It's a way of helping people to learn more about the great patrimony of Catholic music that's been largely neglected by the church since the Second Vatican Council.

It's a clear statement by the Vatican that gay men are not welcome in seminaries and religious orders,

It's easy to see the Vatican is wildly inconsistent.

It shows the pope is not obsessed with the past, but is keeping his options open and is willing to do unconventional things that even the innermost Vatican circles don't expect.

Even when they released the 'Memory and Reconciliation' document, the Vatican made clear that there were different camps inside the church, some of whom felt the church was going too far in its apology and others who believe it hadn't gone far enough. Although this pope has gone a lot further than any in history toward acknowledging corporate responsibility on the part of the church, he's pushing against significant opposition, and the outcome will still be regarded as insufficient in some quarters.

New York's Fulton Street is the Vatican City of fish markets.

On behalf of the government and the state of Israel, I would like to express condolences on the passing of Pope John Paul II, and to share in the mourning of millions of Christians and believers in both the state of Israel and around the Christian world. Pope John Paul II was a man of peace and a friend of the Jewish people, who was familiar with the uniqueness of the Jewish people and who worked for an historic reconciliation between the peoples and for the establishment of diplomatic relations between Israel and the Vatican in late 1993. ...Yesterday, the world lost one of the most important leaders of our generation, whose great contribution to rapprochement and unity between peoples, understanding and tolerance will be with us for many years.

In the question of homosexuality, the Vatican was rather permissive or lenient, with regard to all these crimes of sexual abuse.

All the speakers have some connection to the Vatican and have different insights on a common theme.

The collaboration with the episcopacy that theologians enjoyed at the time of the Second Vatican Council no longer seems to be their experience.

For two people in a marriage to live together day after day is unquestionably the one miracle the Vatican has overlooked.

That married couples can live together day after day is a miracle the Vatican has overlooked.