130+ Inspirational Pope Francis Quotes [2024] Head Of The Catholic Church

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Updated: January 20th, 2022

Pope Francis is the head of the Catholic Church and also the crowned head of the Vatican City State since 2013.

Pope Francis is the first pope to be a member of the Society of Jesus, the first from the Americas, the first from the Southern Hemisphere, and the first pope from outside Europe since Gregory III.

We've put together an incredible collection of Pope Francis quotes to read.

Here they are:

130+ Inspirational Pope Francis Quotes [2024] Head Of The Catholic Church

List of Inspiring Pope Francis Quotes

Each of us has a vision of good and of evil. We have to encourage people to move towards what they think is good. Everyone has his own idea of good and evil and must choose to follow the good and fight evil as he conceives them. That would be enough to make the world a better place. - Pope Francis

Life is a journey. When we stop, things don't go right. - Pope Francis

We must restore hope to young people, help the old, be open to the future, spread love. Be poor among the poor. We need to include the excluded and preach peace. - Pope Francis

It is not 'progressive' to try to resolve problems by eliminating a human life. - Pope Francis

A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges is not Christian. This is not in the Gospel. - Pope Francis

The media only writes about the sinners and the scandals, he said, but that's normal because a tree that falls makes more noise than a forest that grows. - Pope Francis

I prefer a church that is bruised, hurting, and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a church that is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security. - Pope Francis

No one can grow if he does not accept his smallness. - Pope Francis

God never tires of forgiving us; we are the ones who tire of seeking his mercy. - Pope Francis

We all have the duty to do good. - Pope Francis

A little bit of mercy makes the world less cold and more just. - Pope Francis

I see clearly that the thing the church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful; it needs nearness, proximity. - Pope Francis

Situations can change; people can change. Be the first to seek to bring good. Do not grow accustomed to evil, but defeat it with good. - Pope Francis

Living together is an art. It's a patient art, it's a beautiful art, it's fascinating. - Pope Francis

This is the struggle of every person: be free or be a slave. - Pope Francis

Abortion isn't a lesser evil, it's a crime. Taking one life to save another, that's what the Mafia does. It's a crime. It's an absolute evil. - Pope Francis

I am a sinner. This is the most accurate definition. It is not a figure of speech, a literary genre. I am a sinner. - Pope Francis

God never gives someone a gift they are not capable of receiving. If he gives us the gift of Christmas, it is because we all have the ability to understand and receive it. - Pope Francis

Christmas is joy, religious joy, an inner joy of light and peace. - Pope Francis

Idolatry, then, is always polytheism, an aimless passing from one lord to another. Idolatry does not offer a journey but rather a plethora of paths leading nowhere and forming a vast labyrinth. - Pope Francis

The Church must be a place of mercy freely given, where everyone can feel welcomed, loved, forgiven, and encouraged to live the good life of the Gospel. - Pope Francis

Jesus teaches us another way: Go out. Go out and share your testimony, go out and interact with your brothers, go out and share, go out and ask. Become the Word in body as well as spirit. - Pope Francis

Instead of imposing new obligations, (Christians) should appear as people who wish to share their joy, who point to a horizon of beauty, and who invite others to a delicious banquet. - Pope Francis

How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure but it is news when the stock market loses two points? - Pope Francis

This is important: to get to know people, listen, expand the circle of ideas. The world is crisscrossed by roads that come closer together and move apart, but the important thing is that they lead towards the Good. - Pope Francis

Find new ways to spread the word of God to every corner of the world. - Pope Francis

God's image is the married couple, a man and woman, together. Not just the man. Not just the woman. No, both of them. That's God's image. - Pope Francis

The Lord never tires of forgiving. It is we who tire of asking for forgiveness. - Pope Francis

Where there is truth, there is also light, but don't confuse light with the flash. - Pope Francis

Whenever we encounter another person in love, we learn something new about God. - Pope Francis

Indifference is dangerous, whether innocent or not. - Pope Francis

Before all else, the Gospel invites us to respond to the God of love who saves us, to see God in others, and to go forth from ourselves to seek the good of others. - Pope Francis

We don't have to expect everything from those who govern us; that would be juvenile. - Pope Francis

One who believes may not be presumptuous; on the contrary, truth leads to humility, because believers know that, rather than ourselves possessing truth, it is the truth that embraces and possesses us. - Pope Francis

I think that we succumb to attitudes that do not permit us to dialogue: domination, not knowing how to listen, annoyance in our speech, preconceived judgments and so many others. - Pope Francis

If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has goodwill, who am I to judge? We shouldn't marginalize people for this. They must be integrated into society. - Pope Francis

You can, you must try to seek God in every human life. Although the life of a person is a land full of thorns and weeds, there is always a space in which the good seed can grow. You have to trust God. - Pope Francis

We are impatient, anxious to see the whole picture, but God lets us see things slowly, quietly. - Pope Francis

God always has patience. - Pope Francis

Since many of you do not belong to the Catholic Church and others are non-believers, from the bottom of my heart I give this silent blessing to each and every one of you, respecting the conscience of each one of you but knowing that each one of you is a child of God. - Pope Francis

The root of this possibility of doing good - that we all have - is in creation. - Pope Francis

Our faith in Christ, who became poor, and was always close to the poor and the outcast, is the basis of our concern for the integral development of society’s most neglected members. - Pope Francis

If we start without confidence, we have already lost half the battle and we bury our talents. - Pope Francis

The most important thing in the life of every man and every woman is not that they should never fall along the way. The important thing is always to get back up, not to stay on the ground licking your wounds. - Pope Francis

The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone! 'Father, the atheists?' Even the atheists. Everyone! - Pope Francis

Since God created the world, He also created reality. - Pope Francis

If our hearts are closed, if our hearts are made of stone, the stones find their way into our hands and we are ready to throw them. - Pope Francis

I believe in God - not in a Catholic God; there is no Catholic God. There is God, and I believe in Jesus Christ, his incarnation. Jesus is my teacher and my pastor, but God, the Father, Abba, is the light and the Creator. This is my Being. - Pope Francis

Human rights are not only violated by terrorism, repression, or assassination, but also by unfair economic structures that create huge inequalities. - Pope Francis

We need to remember and remind ourselves where we come from, what we are, our nothingness. - Pope Francis

The Church does not exist to condemn people but to bring about an encounter with the visceral love of God’s mercy. - Pope Francis

Joy adapts and changes, but it always endures, even as a flicker of light born of our personal certainty that, when everything is said and done, we are infinitely loved. - Pope Francis

Some people want to know why I wished to be called Francis. For me, Francis of Assisi is the man of poverty, the man of peace, the man who loves and protects creation. - Pope Francis

God makes Himself felt in the heart of each person. He also respects the culture of all people. God is open to all people. He calls everyone. He moves everyone to seek Him and to discover Him through creation. - Pope Francis

Truth, according to the Christian faith, is God's love for us in Jesus Christ. Therefore, truth is a relationship. - Pope Francis

A church without women would be like the apostolic college without Mary. The Madonna is more important than the apostles, and the church herself is feminine, the spouse of Christ and a mother. - Pope Francis

In Europe first and now in America, elected men have taken it upon themselves to indebt their people to create an atmosphere of dependency. And why? For their own selfish need to increase their own personal power. - Pope Francis

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

The Church is or should go back to being a community of God's people, and priests, pastors, and bishops, who have the care of souls, are at the service of the people of God. - Pope Francis

Money has to serve, not to rule. - Pope Francis

Ecumenical relations it is important not only to know each other better but also to recognize what the Spirit has sown in the other as a gift for us. - Pope Francis

Truth is a relationship. As such, each one of us receives the truth and expresses it from within, that is to say, according to one's own circumstances, culture, and situation in life. - Pope Francis

See everything; turn a blind eye to much; correct a little. - Pope Francis

We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage, and the use of contraceptive methods. The teaching of the church is clear, and I am a son of the church, but it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time. - Pope Francis

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. - Pope Francis

The Roman Curia has its defects, but it seems to me that people often overemphasize its defects and talk too little about the health of the many religious and laypeople who work there. - Pope Francis

If investments in banks fall, it is a tragedy, and people say, 'What are we going to do?' but if people die of hunger, have nothing to eat, or suffer from poor health, that's nothing. - Pope Francis

A Christian who does not pray for those who govern is not a good Christian. - Pope Francis

I love tango, and I used to dance when I was young. - Pope Francis

We have to work harder to develop a profound theology of women within the church. The feminine genius is needed wherever we make important decisions. - Pope Francis

The Pope loves everyone, rich and poor alike, but the Pope has the duty, in Christ's name, to remind the rich to help the poor, to respect them, to promote them. - Pope Francis

A person once asked me, in a provocative manner, if I approved of homosexuality. I replied with another question: 'Tell me: when God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love, or reject and condemn this person?' We must always consider the person. - Pope Francis

Religion has the right to express its opinion in the service of the people, but God in creation has set us free: it is not possible to interfere spiritually in the life of a person. - Pope Francis

You cannot be in a position of power and destroy the life of another person. - Pope Francis

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

When I was a seminarian, I was dazzled by a girl I met at an uncle's wedding. I was surprised by her beauty, her intellectual brilliance... and, well, I was bowled over for quite a while. - Pope Francis

Today, the news is scandals; that is news, but the many children who don't have food - that's not news. This is grave. We can't rest easy while things are this way. - Pope Francis

I like it when someone tells me 'I don't agree.' This is a true collaborator. When they say 'Oh, how great, how great, how great,' that's not useful. - Pope Francis

If the Christian is a restorationist, a legalist if he wants everything clear and safe, then he will find nothing. Tradition and memory of the past must help us to have the courage to open up new areas to God. - Pope Francis

Wretched are those who are vindictive and spiteful. - Pope Francis

Faith grows when it is lived and shaped by Love. - Pope Francis

Living our vocation to be protectors of God’s handiwork is essential to a life of virtue; it is not an optional or a secondary aspect of our Christian experience. - Pope Francis

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. - Pope Francis

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. - Pope Francis

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. - Pope Francis

In our ecclesiastical region there are priests who don't baptize the children of single mothers because they weren't conceived in the sanctity of marriage. These are today's hypocrites. Those who clericalize the church. Those who separate the people of God from salvation. - Pope Francis

Perhaps I can say that I am a bit astute, that I can adapt to circumstances, but it is also true that I am a bit naive. Yes, but the best summary, the one that comes more from the inside and I feel most true is this: I am a sinner whom the Lord has looked upon. - Pope Francis

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

Human self-understanding changes with time, and so also human consciousness deepens. - Pope Francis

Where there is no work, there is no dignity. - Pope Francis

These days there is a lot of poverty in the world, and that's a scandal when we have so many riches and resources to give to everyone. We all have to think about how we can become a little poorer. - Pope Francis

Agape, the love of each one of us for the other, from the closest to the furthest, is in fact the only way that Jesus has given us to find the way of salvation and of the Beatitudes. - Pope Francis

Justice on its own is not enough. With mercy and forgiveness, God goes beyond justice, he subsumes it and exceeds it in a higher event in which we experience love, which is at the root of true justice. - Pope Francis

I believe that Catholics involved in politics carry the values of their religion within them, but have the mature awareness and expertise to implement them. The Church will never go beyond its task of expressing and disseminating its values, at least as long as I'm here. - Pope Francis

In this quest to seek and find God in all things, there is still an area of uncertainty. There must be. If a person says that he met God with total certainty and is not touched by a margin of uncertainty, then this is not good. - Pope Francis

The proclamation of the saving love of God comes before moral and religious imperatives. Today sometimes it seems that the opposite order is prevailing. - Pope Francis

Every child that isn't born, but is unjustly condemned to be aborted, has the face of Jesus Christ, has the face of the Lord. - Pope Francis

The Son of God became incarnate in the souls of men to instill the feeling of brotherhood. All are brothers and all children of God. - Pope Francis

I dream of a church that is a mother and shepherdess. - Pope Francis

Right now, we don't have a very good relation with creation. - Pope Francis

Proselytism is solemn nonsense; it makes no sense. We need to get to know each other, listen to each other and improve our knowledge of the world around us. - Pope Francis

The confessional is not a torture chamber, but the place in which the Lord's mercy motivates us to do better. - Pope Francis

The people of God want pastors, not clergy acting like bureaucrats or government officials. - Pope Francis

Anyone who wants to be pope doesn't care much for themselves, God doesn't bless them. I didn't want to be pope. - Pope Francis

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. - Pope Francis

There is a danger that threatens everyone in the church, all of us. The danger of worldliness. It leads us to vanity, arrogance, and pride. - Pope Francis

Let us all remember this: one cannot proclaim the Gospel of Jesus without the tangible witness of one's life. - Pope Francis

We just cannot worry about ourselves. - Pope Francis

A beautiful homily, a genuine sermon, must begin with the first proclamation, with the proclamation of salvation. There is nothing more solid, deep, and sure than this proclamation. - Pope Francis

Finally an evangelizing community is filled with joy; it knows how to rejoice always. - Pope Francis

Grace is not part of consciousness; it is the amount of light in our souls, not knowledge nor reason. - Pope Francis

We have only one heart, and the same wretchedness which leads us to mistreat an animal will not belong in showing itself in our relationships with other people. - Pope Francis

When Man ceases to worship God he does not worship anything but worships everything. - Pope Francis

Young people are just as attracted to the truth as they are convenient and expediency. - Pope Francis

Unrestrained liberalism only makes the strong stronger and the weak weaker and excludes the most excluded. - Pope Francis

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. - Pope Francis

How I would like a poor Church, and for the poor. - Pope Francis

We must always walk in the presence of the Lord, in the light of the Lord, always trying to live in an irreprehensible way. - Pope Francis

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. - Pope Francis

Politics is the most important of the civil activities and has its own field of action, which is not that of religion. - Pope Francis

Narcissism makes people incapable of looking beyond themselves, beyond their own desires and needs. - Pope Francis

Someone doesn’t want to carry the cross, I don’t know what she’s still doing in the convent. - Pope Francis

He who doesn't pray to the Lord prays to the devil. - Pope Francis

From my point of view, God is the light that illuminates the darkness, even if it does not dissolve it, and a spark of divine light is within each of us. - Pope Francis

Worshipping is stripping ourselves of our idols, even the most hidden ones, and choosing the Lord as the center, as the highway of our lives. - Pope Francis

The Church does not exist to condemn people but to bring about an encounter with the visceral love of God’s mercy. - Pope Francis

The language of the Spirit, the language of the Gospel, is the language of communion that invites us to get the better of closedness and indifference, division, and antagonism. - Pope Francis

Those who today always look for disciplinarian solutions, those who long for an exaggerated doctrinal 'security,' those who stubbornly try to recover a past that no longer exists - they have a static and inward-directed view of things. In this way, faith becomes an ideology among other ideologies. - Pope Francis

I am always wary of decisions made hastily. I am always wary of the first decision, that is, the first thing that comes to my mind if I have to make a decision. This is usually the wrong thing. I have to wait and assess, looking deep into myself, taking the necessary time. - Pope Francis

Among us, who is above must be in service of the others. This doesn't mean we have to wash each other's feet every day, but we must help one another. - Pope Francis

Often it is better simply to slow down, to put aside our eagerness in order to see and listen to others, to stop rushing from one thing to another, and to remain with someone who has faltered along the way. - Pope Francis

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