“In the face of this emergency, our first duty must be to protect these children. My brothers and sisters, what we are doing for these children as a church? It’s not about politics. We all know that. It’s about who we are as Catholics.”
“In this dialogue, the Church rejoices in the marvelous progress of science, seeing it as a sign of the enormous God-given potential of the human mind.”
“I cannot greet a nation and tell it that I love it from inside a sardine can, even one made of glass. For me that is a wall. It’s true that something can happen to me, but let’s be realistic, at my age I don’t have much to lose.”
“Going to school means opening your mind and heart to reality in all its richness and various dimensions. If one learns how to learn — this is the secret, learning to learn — this will stay with you forever.”
“Be sure to remember this: Read a passage of the Gospel every day and go to Communion every Sunday to receive Jesus. Don’t forget! When you are sad, pick up the word of God. When you’re feeling down, pick up the word of God and go to Sunday Mass to take Communion, to participate in the mystery of Jesus.”
“It is necessary to reassert the strongest opposition to every direct attack on life, especially innocent and defenseless life, and the unborn child in the womb is the definition of innocence. Every Christian is responsible for this evangelical witness: to protect life in all its stages with courage and love.
“The man and woman are consecrated for love. Through the sacrament, the spouses are given a real mission to make visible — even through simple and ordinary gestures — the love with which Christ loves his church.”
“I ask that you have the grace to be very close to your children, letting them grow, but being by their side. They need you, your presence, to be there, your love!”
— Pope Francis, speaking to fathers present in St. Peter’s Square March 19, the feast of St. Joseph, patron saint of the universal church and Jesus’ earthly father
“Fasting makes sense if it really chips away at our security and, as a consequence, benefits someone else, if it helps us cultivate the style of the good Samaritan, who bent down to his brother in need and took care of him.”
— Pope Francis, at his Ash Wednesday Mass March 5 at Rome’s Basilica of Santa Sabina
