Pope Benedict XVI

“The mature fruit of mystagogy is an awareness that one's life is being progressively transformed by the holy mysteries being celebrated. The aim of all Christian education, moreover, is to train the believer in an adult faith that can make him a "new creation", capable of bearing witness in his surroundings to the Christian hope that inspires him.”

“We need Grace and forgiveness.”

“The positive aspects of modernity are to be acknowledged unreservedly: we are all grateful for the marvellous possibilities that it has opened up for mankind and for the progress in humanity that has been granted to us.”

“The life of the community, both domestically and internationally, clearly demonstrates that respect for rights, and the guarantees that follow from them, are measures of the common good that serve to evaluate the relationship between justice and injustice, development and poverty, security and conflict.”

“The Catholic tradition maintains that the objective norms governing right action are accessible to reason, prescinding from the content of revelation.”

“Today, I, too, wish to reaffirm that I intend to continue on the path toward improved relations and friendship with the Jewish people, following the decisive lead given by John Paul II.”

“Faith is not a product of reflection, nor is it even an attempt to penetrate the depths of my own being.”

“In reality, I am more a professor, one who reflects and mediates on spiritual questions. Practical governance is not my strong point, and this is certainly a weakness. But I do not see myself as a failure. For eight years, I carried out my work.”

“We can learn from him that suffering and the gift of himself is an essential gift we need in our time.”

“The glory of God is the living man, but the life of man is the vision of God', says St. Irenaeus, getting to the heart of what happens when man meets God on the mountain in the wilderness. Ultimately, it is the very life of man, man himself as living righteously, that is the true worship of God, but life only becomes real life when it receives its form from looking toward God.”

“In our heart, in the heart of each of you, let there be always the joyous certainty that the Lord is near, that he does not abandon us, that he is near to us, and that he surrounds us with his love.”

“From a theological point of view, Easter is the center of the Church year; but Christmas is the most profoundly human feast of faith, because it allows us to feel most deeply the humanity of God. The crib has a unique power to show us what it means to say that God wished to be “Immanuel”—a “God with us”, a God whom we may address in intimate language, because he encounters us as a child.”

“The principle of tolerance and respect for freedom promoted by the reforms of the Second Vatican Council are today being manipulated and erroneously taken too far.”

“Purity of heart is what enables us to see.”

“For me, it's a great joy to be together with priests: in the end, the bishop of Rome is the bishop and brother of all priests. His mandate is to confirm the brothers in the faith.”

“We pray that the Lord may help us to produce His light in ourselves, even in dark days, so that we might be light for others, illuminating the world and life in this world.”

“Morality is not man's prison but rather the divine element in him.”

“So Jesus in the throes of his Passion is an image of hope: God is on the side of those who suffer.”

“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.”

“The counterweight to the dominion of evil can consist in the first place only in the divine-human love of Jesus Christ that is always greater than any possible power of evil.”