Pope Francis Christian Quotations

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

You might say, 'Can't we have a more human Christianity, without the cross, without Jesus, without stripping ourselves?' In this way we'd become pastry-shop Christians, like a pretty cake and nice sweet things. Pretty, but not true Christians.

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

First of all, you ask me if the God of Christians forgives one who doesn't believe and doesn't seek the faith. Premise that - and it's the fundamental thing - the mercy of God has no limits if one turns to him with a sincere and contrite heart; the question for one who doesn't believe in God lies in obeying one's conscience.

You cannot be a conscious Christian without St. Paul. He translated the teachings of Christ into a doctrinal structure that, even with the additions of a vast number of thinkers, theologians and pastors, has resisted and still exists after two thousand years.

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.

We Christians identify Christ with the sun, and the moon with the Church, the community of the faithful. No one, save Jesus Christ, possesses his or her own light.

Our relationship with the followers of Islam has taken on great importance, since they are now significantly present in many traditionally Christian countries, where they can freely worship and become fully a part of society. We must never forget that they "profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, who will judge humanity on the last day".

... the Christian is a person who remembers: ... He continually says to the Lord: 'Yes, I want the commandments, I want your will, I will follow you'. He is a man of the covenant, and we celebrate the covenant, every day " in the Mass: thus a Christian is "a woman, a man of the Eucharist".

As Christians, our duty is to pray for them and ask the Lord to give them the grace of penance, so that they don't die with a corrupt heart, because otherwise the dogs of hell will take their blood.

And with a little sense of humor we can say that there are Christian bats who prefer the shadows to the light of the presence of the Lord.

To be good Christians you have to contemplate the suffering humanity of Jesus. "How can we bear witness? Contemplate Jesus. How can we forgive? Contemplate Jesus suffering. How can we not hate our neighbor? Contemplate Jesus suffering. How can we avoid gossiping about our neighbor? Contemplate Jesus suffering. There is no other way". These virtues are the those of the Father, who forgives us always, and Our Lady, Our Mother, shares in these virtues too.

We learn many virtues in our Christian families. Above all, we learn to love, asking nothing in return.

All Christians need an 'ecological conversion', whereby the effects of their encounter with Jesus Christ become evident in their relationship with the world around them.

When we give help to the poor, we are not doing the work of aid agencies 'in a Christian way'. Those are good, it is a decent thing to do - aid work is good and quite human - but it is not Christian poverty, which St. Paul desires of us and preaches to us. Christian poverty is that I give of my own, and not of that which is left over - I give even that, which I need for myself, to the poor person, because I know that he enriches me. Why does the poor person enrich me? Because Jesus Himself told us that He is in the poor person.

We cannot take a step in our Christian life without the help of the Lord, because we are weak.

Every time we judge our brother in our hearts or worse when we speak badly of them with others, we are murdering Christians.

As Christians, we have an additional reason to love and serve the poor ; for in them we see the face and the flesh of Christ, who made himself poor so to enrich us with his poverty.

When Christians forget about hope and tenderness they become a cold Church, that loses its sense of direction and is held back by ideologies and worldly attitudes, whereas God’s simplicity tells you: go forward, I am a Father who caresses you.

Christian witness is concrete: words without actions are empty.

The blood of our Christian brothers and sisters is a testimony which cries out to be heard by everyone who can still distinguish between good and evil.

In Christmas, God reveals himself not as one who stands above and who dominates the universe, but as He who lowers himself. It means that to be like Him, we do not have to place ourselves above the others, but come down, come down and serve them, become small among the small, and poor among the poor. It's a bad thing when one sees a Christian that does not want to come down, a Christian that uses everything to show off. Not nice, eh? That is not Christian, that is paganism

Being a Christian is not just about following commandments: it is about letting Christ take possession of our lives and transform them.

Sometimes we are tempted to be that kind of Christian who keeps the Lord’s wounds at arm’s length. Yet Jesus wants us to touch human misery, to touch the suffering flesh of others. He hopes that we will stop looking for those personal or communal niches which shelter us from the maelstrom of human misfortune and instead enter into the reality of other people’s lives and know the power of tenderness. Whenever we do so, our lives become wonderfully complicated and we experience intensely what it is to be a people, to be part of a people.

May the Santo Niño continue to bless the Philippines and may he sustain the Christians of this great nation in their vocation to be witnesses and missionaries of the joy of the Gospel, in Asia and in the whole world.

While all too many people live in dire poverty, others are caught up in materialism and lifestyles which are destructive of family life and the most basic demands of Christian morality.

Pay attention, my young friends: to go against the current; this is good for the heart, but we need courage to swim against the tide. ... We Christians were not chosen by the Lord for little things; push onwards toward the highest principles. Stake your lives on noble ideals, my dear young people!

You just can’t say that, just as you can’t say that all Christians are fundamentalists. We have our share of them (fundamentalists). All religions have these little groups,

During my visit to the Philippines, I wanted in a particular way to meet with young people, to listen to you and to talk to you. I want to express the love and the hopes of the Church for you. And I want to encourage you as Christian citizens of this country to offer yourselves passionately and honestly to the great work of renewing your society and helping to build a better world.

Christian hope is not a ghost and it does not deceive. It is a theological virtue and therefore, ultimately, a gift from God that cannot be reduced to optimism, which is only human. God does not mislead hope; God cannot deny himself. God is all promise.

There is another important point: encountering the poor. If we step outside ourselves we find poverty. Today-it sickens the heart to say so-the discovery of a tramp who has died of the cold is not news. Today what counts as news is, maybe, a scandal. A scandal: ah, that is news! Today, the thought that a great many children do not have food to eat is not news. This is serious, this is serious! We cannot put up with this! Yet that is how things are. We cannot become starched Christians, those over-educated Christians who speak of theological matters as they calmly sip their tea.

The parish is the presence of the Church in any given territory, an environment for hearing God's word, for growth in Christian life, for dialogue, proclamation, charitable outreach, worship and celebration.

The Gospel calls individual Christians to live lives of honesty, integrity and concern for the common good.. to create circles of integrity.., networks of solidarity which can expand to embrace and transform society by their prophetic witness.

The blood of our Christian brothers is a witness that cries out..If they are Catholic, Orthodox, Copts, Lutherans, it is not important : They are Christians. The blood is the same: It is the blood which confesses Christ.

For every Christian, the proclamation and witnessing of the Gospel are never an isolated act. This is important. For every Christian the proclamation and witnessing of the Gospel are never an isolated or group act, and no evangelizers acts, as Paul VI reminded very well, "on the strength of a personal inspiration, but in union with the mission of the Church and in her name"

For us Christians, love of neighbour springs from love of God; and it is its most limpid expression. Here one tries to love one's neighbour, but also to allow oneself to be loved by one's neighbour. These two attitudes go together, one cannot be exercised without the other. Printed on the letterhead of the Missionaries of Charity are these words of Jesus: "as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me". Loving God in our brethren and loving our brethren in God.

It makes no difference whether they be Catholics, Orthodox, Copts or Protestants. They are Christians! Their blood is one and the same. Their blood confesses Christ.

Being Christian without the Church doesn't make sense. That's why the great Paul VI, said that the most absurd dichotomy is loving Christ without the Church. To listen to Christ, but not the Church. To be with Christ, but stay at the margins of the Church. It's not possible. It's an absurd dichotomy.

I make a forceful and urgent call to the entire Catholic Church, and also to every Christian of other confessions, as well as to followers of every religion and to those brothers and sisters who do not believe: peace is a good which overcomes every barrier, because it belongs to all of humanity!

We who are Christians, members of God’s family, are called to go out to the needy and to serve them.

Proclaim the beauty and truth of the Christian message to a society which is tangent by confusing presentations of sexuality, marriage and the family.

When exhaling this air, we announced Jesus Christ risen by the same Spirit. No one can live without breathing. It is the same for the Christian: without praise and mission there is not Christian life. And with praise, worship. We rarely speak about worship. What do we do when we pray? We ask things of God, we give thanks. But worshipping and adoring God is part of breathing - praise and worship.

I invite all Christians, everywhere, at this very moment, to a renewed personal encounter with Jesus Christ, or at least an openness to letting him encounter them.

We cannot live as Christians separate from the rock who is Christ. He gives us strength and stability, but also joy and serenity.

If we don't learn how to cry, we can't be good Christians. This is a challenge. Don't be frightened of crying.

Small yet strong in the love of God, like Saint Francis of Assisi, all of us, as Christians, are called to watch over and protect the fragile world in which we live, and all its peoples.

Abortion is without a doubt one of the greatest moral evils within modernity. As the "Advocate of Christian Memory," a pope must take up the mantle of defending the culture of life - a defense the Early Church held against the pagans of Rome.

Our Christian identity is belonging to a people: the Church. Without the Church we are not Christians.

Being Christian is not just obeying orders but means being in Christ, thinking like him, acting like him, loving like him; it means letting him take possession of our life and change it, transform it, and free it from the darkness of evil and sin. ... Let us show the joy of being children of God, the freedom that living in Christ gives us which is true freedom, the freedom that saves us from the slavery of evil, of sin and of death!

The disciple of Jesus gives up all he has, all his goods, because he has found in him the greatest Good from which every other good receives its full value and meaning: family bonds, other relationships, work, cultural and economic goods and so on... The Christian detaches himself from everything and rediscovers all of it in the logic of the Gospel, the logic of love and service.

Our mission as Christians is to conform ourselves evermore to Jesus as the model of our lives.

We cannot become starched Christians, too polite, who speak of theology calmly over tea. We have to become courageous Christians and seek out those (who need help most).

Do not be content to live a mediocre Christian life: walk with determination along the path of holiness.

If you don’t learn how to cry, you cannot be a good Christian. When they posed this question to us – why children suffer, why this or that tragedy occurs in life – our response must be either silence or a word that is born of our tears. Be courageous, don’t be afraid to cry.

Christian marriage is that sacrament which builds up the community of the Church and of society. Marriage has been inscribed in creation's design by God, and, by his grace, countless Christian men and women have lived married life fully.

How many Christians live for appearances? Their life seems like a soap bubble. The soap bubble is beautiful, with all its colours! But it lasts only a second, and then what?

A Christian who withdraws into himself, hiding all that the Lord has given him, is not a Christian! I would ask the many young people present to be generous with their God-given talents for the good of others, the Church and our world.

There are no part-time Christians.

This is Christian hope, that the future is in God's hands.

I have decided to proclaim for the whole Church... a day of fasting and prayer for peace in Syria, the Middle East, and throughout the world, and I also invite each person, including our fellow Christians, followers of other religions and all men of good will, to participate, in whatever way they can, in this initiative.

A Christian who is not a revolutionary today isn't a Christian

The secret of Christian living is love. Only love fills the empty spaces caused by evil.

If we live the faith in our daily life, then our work too becomes a chance to spread the joy of being a Christian.

Every Christian can witness to God in the workplace, not only with words, but above all with an honest life.

There is the tendency to place ourselves and our ambitions at the center of our lives. This is very human, but it is not Christian.

Division within a Christian community is a very grave sin; it is the work of the devil.

May every Church and Christian community be a place of mercy amid so much indifference.

Mary joins us, she fights at our side. She supports Christians in the fight against the forces of evil. Especially through prayer, through the rosary. Hear me out, the rosary... Do you pray the Rosary each day?

Let us seek to live in a way that is always worthy of our Christian vocation

Dear Young People, do not be mediocre; the Christian life challenges us with great ideals!

Indifference to our neighbor and to God also represents a real temptation for us Christians. Each year during Lent we need to hear once more the voice of the prophets who cry out and trouble our conscience.

The laity are called to become a leaven of Christian living within society.

This is the mission of every Christian: lumina pandit - to spread the light and to tell the world of God's love.

Sometimes it is possible to live without knowing our neighbours: this is not Christian

The Christian mission has only one focus: to change individual's lives so they can change the world.

Prayer, humility, and charity toward all are essential in the Christian life: they are the way to holiness.

A Christian who does not protect creation, who does not let it grow, is a Christian who does not care about the work of God; that work that was born from the love of God for us. ... And this is the first response to the first creation: protect creation, make it grow.

Today, this selfish attitude of indifference has taken on global proportions, to the extent that we can speak of a globalization of indifference. It is a problem which we, as Christians, need to confront.

We Christians bring peace and grace as a treasure to be offered to the world, but these gifts can bear fruit only when Christians live and work together in harmony. This makes it easier to contribute to building relations of respect and peaceful coexistence with those who belong to other religious traditions, and with non-believers.

A Christian is one who is invited... to join in the feast, to the joy of being saved, to the joy of being redeemed, to the joy of sharing life with Christ. This is a joy! You are called to a party!

Christians know how to face difficulties, trials and defeat with serenity and hope in the Lord.

In imitation of our Master, we Christians are called to confront the poverty of our brothers and sisters, to touch it, to make it our own and to take practical steps to alleviate it.

Let Christ turn your natural optimism into Christian hope, your energy into moral virtue, your good will into genuine self-sacrificin g love! This is the path you are called to take. This is the path to overcoming all that threatens hope, virtue and love in your lives and in your culture. In this way your youth will be a gift to Jesus and to the world.

It is not enough to say we are Christians. We must live the faith, not only with our words, but with our actions.

A Christian brings peace to others. Not only peace, but also love, kindness, faithfulness and joy.

Every Christian is a missionary to the extent that he or she bears witness to God’s love. Be missionaries of God’s tenderness!

Being a Christian means renouncing ourselves, taking up the cross and carrying it with Jesus. There is no other way.

The Christian family is missionary: it announces the love of God to the world.

I cannot imagine a Christian who does not know how to smile. May we joyfully witness to our faith.

Let us pray for the many Christians in the world who still suffer persecution and violence. May God grant them the courage of fidelity.

Christians must respond to evil with good, taking the cross upon themselves as Jesus did

A Christian is never bored or sad. Rather, the one who loves Christ is full of joy and radiates joy.

Christian love is loving without counting the cost. This is the lesson of the Good Samaritan; this is the lesson of Jesus.

In this Year of Faith, let us remember that faith is not something we possess, but something we share. Every Christian is an apostle.

In the difficult moments of life, Christians can turn to the Mother of God and find protection and care.

Our Christian witness is authentic when it is faithful and unconditional.

We cannot be Christians part-time. If Christ is at the center of our lives, he is present in all that we do.

The Christian who does not feel that the Virgin Mary is his or her mother is an orphan.

We cannot be part-time Christians! We should seek to live our faith at every moment of every day.

Indifference towards those in need is not acceptable for a Christian.