Quotes from Pope Benedict XVI

Interreligious dialogue in the strict sense of the term is not possible without putting one's own faith into parentheses.

Prayer, as a means of drawing ever new strength from Christ, is concretely and urgently needed.

The Church is not self-made, it was created by God and is continuously formed by Him. This finds expression in the Sacraments, above all in that of Baptism: I enter into the Church not by a bureaucratic act, but with the help of this Sacrament.

We all see that, today, man can destroy the foundation of his existence: his Earth.

Having a clear faith, based on the creed of the church is often labeled today as fundamentalism. Whereas relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and swept along by every wind of teaching, look like the only attitude acceptable to today's standards.

Thus, the apostles' adventure began as a gathering of persons who open to one another reciprocally. A direct knowledge of the Teacher began for the disciples.

The Catechism was not written to please you. It will not make life easy for you, because it demands of you a new life.

A form of reason that in some way wished to strip itself of beauty would be diminished; it would be a blinded reason.

The hatred and contempt for men, women and children that was manifested in the Shoah was a crime against God and against humanity.

It is essential that God created men and women to be one, as it is said in the first chapters of the Bible. So I think even if our culture is against marriage as essential form of relations between human beings, between women and men. I think our nature is always present, and we can understand it if we will understand it.

I don't know if the term 'liberation theology,' which can be interpreted in a very positive sense, will help us much. What's important is the common rationality to which the church offers a fundamental contribution, and which must always help in the education of conscience, both for public and for private life.

It's a great responsibility before God, the judge who guides us, who draws us to truth and good, and in this sense the church must unmask evil, rendering present the goodness of God, rendering present his truth, the truly infinite for which we are thirsty.