Benoît XVI citations (127 citations, Page 4)

français
Dialogue sur le christianisme et l’islam, que le savant empereur byzantin Manuel II Paléologue mena avec un érudit perse, en 1391 à Ankara
Discours, Sur la foi et la violence

âme , nature , rapports , pensée

“La volonté de profiter pleinement dès à présent du monde et de ce qu'offre la vie, de chercher le ciel ici-bas sans se laisser arrêter par le moindre scrupule. Cette vision des choses est entrée pour une grande part dans la conscience moderne et elle détermine largement la conception de l'existence qui a cours aujourd'hui (…) Après l'expérience des régimes autoritaires, de la brutalité avec laquelle ils ont écrasé les hommes, raillé, asservi, frappé les faibles, nous sommes à nouveau à même de comprendre ceux qui ont faim et soif de justice.”

Benoît XVI

Jésus de Nazareth, 2007

volonté , vie , hommes , faim

“On ne peut oublier que le fondamentalisme religeux et le laïcisme sont des formes spéculaires et extrêmes du refus du légitime pluralisme et du principe de laïcité.”

Benoît XVI

Messages, Sur la religion

oubli , formation

Benoît XVI: Citations en anglais

“To suffer with the other and for others; to suffer for the sake of truth and justice; to suffer out of love and in order to become a person who truly loves — these are fundamental elements of humanity, and to abandon them would destroy man himself.”

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Pope Benedict XVI

In Encyclical Letter Spe Salvi http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20071130_spe-salvi_en.html (30 November 2007)
2007

“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””

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Pope Benedict XVI

1 Cor 13:6
2009, Cartias in Vertitate (29 June 2009)

“Do not be fooled by those who see you as just another consumer in a market of undifferentiated possibilities, where choice itself becomes the good, novelty usurps beauty, and subjective experience displaces truth.”

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Pope Benedict XVI

2008, Papal Welcome (17 July 2008)

“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.”

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Pope Benedict XVI

2006, Faith, Reason and the University — Memories and Reflections (2006)

“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.”

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Pope Benedict XVI

2003

“Having a clear faith, based on the creed of the church, is often labeled today as a fundamentalism. … Whereas relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and "swept along by every wind of teaching," looks like the only attitude acceptable to today's standards.We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as definitive and has as its highest value one's own ego and one's own desires… The church needs to withstand the tides of trends and the latest novelties. … We must become mature in this adult faith, we must guide the flock of Christ to this faith.”

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Pope Benedict XVI

In a Homily of His Eminence Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Dean of the College of Cardinals http://www.vatican.va/gpII/documents/homily-pro-eligendo-pontifice_20050418_en.html, during a Mass at St. Peter's Basilica before the conclave of cardinals (18 April 2005)
2005

“As the source of our new life in Christ, the Holy Spirit is also, in a very real way, the soul of the Church, the love that binds us to the Lord and to one another, and the light that opens our eyes to see all around us the wonders of God's grace.”

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Pope Benedict XVI

2008, Closing Mass (19 July 2008)

“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.”

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Pope Benedict XVI

2009, Cartias in Vertitate (29 June 2009)

“The ways of the Lord are not comfortable, but we were not created for comfort, but for greatness, for good.”

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Pope Benedict XVI

Comments during his first audience with German pilgrims
2005

“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?”

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Pope Benedict XVI

The Public Square, by Richard John Neuhaus, First Things 1996
1990s

“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.”

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Pope Benedict XVI

from "Cardinal Ratzinger Sees a Media Campaign Against Church," Zenit.org, December 3, 2002
2002

“To be truly alive is to be transformed from within, open to the energy of God's love. In accepting the power of the Holy Spirit you can also transform your families, communities and nations. Set free the gifts! Let wisdom, courage, awe and reverence be the marks of greatness!”

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Pope Benedict XVI

2008, Youth Day Vigil (19 July 2008)

“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.”

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Pope Benedict XVI

in Origins, published by National Catholic News Service, vol. 37, p. 22

“We can be tempted to make the life of faith a matter of mere sentiment, thus blunting its power to inspire a consistent vision of the world and a rigorous dialogue with the many other visions competing for the minds and hearts of our contemporaries.”

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Pope Benedict XVI

2008, Mass with the Clergy (18 July 2008)

“A harmonious relationship between religion and public life is all the more important at a time when some people have come to consider religion a cause of division rather than a force for unity. In a world threatened by sinister and indiscriminate forms of violence, the unified voice of religious people urges nations and communities to resolve conflicts through peaceful means and with full regard for human dignity.”

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Pope Benedict XVI

2008, Inter-religious Meeting (17 July 2008)

“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.”

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Pope Benedict XVI

"Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons," 1986, as reported by National Catholic Reporter
1980s

“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. …”

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Pope Benedict XVI

1990s

“We too must remain faithful to the 'yes' we have given to the Lord's offer of friendship. We know that he will never abandon us. We know that he will always sustain us through the gifts of the Spirit. Mary accepted the Lord's' proposal' in our name. So let us turn to her and ask her to guide us as we struggle to remain faithful to the life-giving relationship God has established with each one of us.”

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Pope Benedict XVI

2008, Angelus following the Closing Mass (19 July 2008)

“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.”

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Pope Benedict XVI

from "Salt of the Earth: Christianity and the Catholic Church at the end of the Millennium: An interview with Peter Seewald," by Ratzinger, San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1997
1990s

“All through the Gospels, it was those who had taken wrong turns who were particularly loved by Jesus because once they recognized their mistake, they were all the more open to his healing message. It was those who were willing to rebuild their lives who were most ready to listen to Jesus and become his disciples. You can follow in their footsteps; you too can grow particularly close to Jesus because you have chosen to return to him.”

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Pope Benedict XVI

2008, Disadvantaged Youth (18 July 2008)

“One of the greatest challenges facing the economy is to achieve the most efficient use — not abuse — of natural resources”

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Pope Benedict XVI

2009, Cartias in Vertitate (29 June 2009)

“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.”

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Pope Benedict XVI

1980s

“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.”

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Pope Benedict XVI

2010, Ubicumque Et Semper (21 September 2010)

“There is more joy in giving than in receiving.”

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Pope Benedict XVI

Never doubt the truth of our Lord's promise that whatever we give him of our creativity, our resources, our persons, will come back to us in abundance.
2008, Closing Mass (19 July 2008)

“It is our weakness that calls forth the grace of God. You show your weakness, He gives us strength.”

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Pope Benedict XVI

Source: Movie The Two Popes, Pope Benedict as Anthony Hopkins

“All dictatorships take away our freedom to choose. We both know that. Or reveal our own weaknesses.”

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Pope Benedict XVI

Source: Movie The Two Popes, Pope Benedict as Anthony Hopkins

“What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful.”

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Pope Benedict XVI

Accompanying letter https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/letters/2007/documents/hf_ben-xvi_let_20070707_lettera-vescovi.html to motu proprio Summorum Pontificum https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/motu_proprio/documents/hf_ben-xvi_motu-proprio_20070707_summorum-pontificum.html.
2007