Top 115 Pope Quotes

We like security: we like the pope to be infallible in matters of faith, and grave doctors to be so in moral questions so that we can feel reassured.

I don’t think you get to be pope without making some enemies, like you do when you’re president.

The fact that President-elect Kennedy would be the first Catholic president did not sit well with many Americans. There was a fear that, as president, Kennedy’s decisions would be based on his religion and dictated by the pope.

I found out recently that my ‘Good News’ show has a big following in North Korea and the Vatican City! Who knew Kim Jong-un and the Pope liked fast-paced satire?

Neither was there any heresy, or diversity of opinion, or disputing about the matter, till the pope had gathered a council to confirm this transubstantiation: wherefore it is most likely that this opinion came up by them of latter days.

Luther was guilty of two great crimes – he struck the Pope in his crown, and the monks in their belly.

The world has a truly historic pope in Francis.

Rarely has a new player on the world stage captured so much attention so quickly – young and old, faithful and cynical – as has Pope Francis.

If the Pope urged the Western nations to rescue persecuted Christians in the Middle East, I would back him wholeheartedly.

Dad was a distant figure, autonomous, a cross between the Pope and Mussolini. He was very Italian, as were all of my uncles, although they were second generation.

Bill Gates is the pope of the personal computer industry. He decides who’s going to build.

Apparently Pope John Paul II and his boys – is that what you call them? – loved one of my songs and thought I was putting spiritual messages in my music. I’m not religious as such. Dogma and I don’t get along.

Bishops may often feel but cannot express the sting and throb of submitting themselves to Roman commands because the latter are always presented as tests of their loyalty to the Pope and of their absolute acceptance of his teaching authority, or Magisterium.

I actually thought Pope Paul VI was the most tragic figure in the modern church, like Lyndon Johnson was a very tragic figure in politics in some ways.

Through his deferential yet decidedly determined demeanor, Pope Francis is not only setting a superior spiritual standard, but he is also leading a thorough transformation of the Catholic Church – rivaling any brand revitalization or corporate turnaround you could name.

I cooked for the two Popes that were here. Pope Francis I cooked for and Pope Benedict before him. Pope Benedict is German. And I did a little research – his mother was a chef.

My favorite time in the cycles of public life is the time when the Pope is dead and they haven’t elected a new one. There’s no one in the world who is infallible for those weeks. And you know, I don’t miss it.

Pope John Paul II brought hope to all corners of the world, to people of all faiths and backgrounds, with his powerful belief in the human spirit.

It often happens that I wake up at night and begin to think about a serious problem and decide I must tell the Pope about it. Then I wake up completely and remember that I am the Pope.

I was the most important person of the world, and people like the Pope would be just like enemies, who would try to put me down in some way or another, or the president. People are always selling the idea that people who have mental illness are suffering.

Tearing up a picture of the Pope comes under the heading of a Comedy Killer. It kind of breaks the spirit of the evening.

We’ve heard some things from Pope Francis that are not fully supportive of free enterprise capitalism. That should be a problem from an American perspective.

When I was an adolescent, I abandoned my country at 23 years to come to Paris to know Andre Breton, the ‘Pope of Surrealism.’ And for three years, I was there working with him being a surrealist.

The one and only time I met Pope Benedict XVI was when he was Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger.

The Pope? How many divisions has he got?

I’m not a Christian. My participation in music is so full blast, 24 hours a day. And that’s my religion. I think I’m as spiritual as the pope, because I spend as much time in my spirituality as he does.

I totally respect the pope, and I totally respect the Catholic bishops and cardinals on doctrine.

Of course, I tweet. Tweeting is a very personal form of expression. Who else could talk about my son refusing to wear a suit to meet the Pope, my husband flying a helicopter, or take a twitpic from our home?

If the Pope plans to spend the majority of his time advocating for flawed climate change policies, then I will not attend.

We need a pope to usher in a new era of inclusion, the end of a sinful clericalism, and a strong sense of duty to those on society’s margins. The 1 billion faithful long for a leader who is fearless and driven – not by terror but by love.

Practically every movie that shows the pope or even a bishop as a character, and in much of western literature of the last 300 or 400 years, these are portrayed as awful figures.

The Jesuits have a vow to obey the pope, but if the pope is a Jesuit, maybe he should have a vow to obey the superior general… I feel like I’m still a Jesuit in terms of my spirituality, what I have in my heart.

I’m sickened by all religions. Religion has divided people. I don’t think there’s any difference between the pope wearing a large hat and parading around with a smoking purse and an African painting his face white and praying to a rock.

The difference between me and most Protestants is most Protestants have no problem at all saying ‘The Lord told me this’ or ‘The Lord told me that,’ but they won’t believe that the Lord speaks through the pope. You know, at least this guy has some credentials.

Pope Francis has mentioned several times in public prior to ‘Amoris Laetitia”s release that lack of work was keeping young people from marriage. He has also riffed on married life and ‘mothers-in-law,’ but this document shows that, even more than a theologian, he is a pastor.

I love people who go out and say, ‘If cinema is God, then I’m the pope.’ As an actor working with these kinds of people, the older you get, the more you appreciate it.

We are monitoring very closely threats against the pope as he comes in to the United States.

The king is so subtle with his words that he would confound the apostolic religion itself. He will find the weak points of the pope’s character and will trip him up to his destruction.

I wouldn’t take the Pope too seriously. He’s a Pole first, a pope second, and maybe a Christian third.

From his first hours as pope, Francis has re-enacted or spoken of the great pastoral transformation of Vatican II as his own agenda.

By the time you have your protagonist attempting to assassinate the Pope, you’ve sort of signaled that everything is on the table.

Pope Francis tells us who he is by pointing to Caravaggio’s St. Matthew: ‘Here, this is me, a sinner on whom the Lord has turned his gaze.’ He is telling us that he has experienced the same rush of speechless wonder and graced love Caravaggio depicts in his painting.

My mother said to me, ‘If you are a soldier, you will become a general. If you are a monk, you will become the Pope.’ Instead, I was a painter, and became Picasso.

Pope John Paul II not only visited Nigeria twice but stood by the country in its fight against dictatorship and injustice.

I come from film, where I only play a character for three months at a time, and then it’s done, so it’s important for me to be able to put on other hats and make sure that all of the tools in my toolbox that don’t apply to Olivia Pope are still in shape.

What a terrible thing it would be to be the Pope! What unthinkable responsibilities to fall on your shoulders at an advanced age! No privacy. No seclusion. No sin.

If a Pope clearly realizes that he is no longer physically, psychologically, and spiritually capable of handling the duties of his office, then he has a right and, under some circumstances, also an obligation to resign.

When I was a child I wanted to be Pope. My greatest disappointment is missing out on that. I also wanted to be a tap dancer but I never fulfilled that ambition either.

It is particularly moving, and I can say this also as a Protestant Christian, that a German – one of us – has been made Pope.

When I was a child, my mother said to me, ‘If you become a soldier, you’ll be a general. If you become a monk, you’ll end up as the Pope.’ Instead, I became a painter and wound up as Picasso.

I would love to have a long and serious conversation with the Pope. And Woody Allen, whom I have never interviewed. Then, after those two? Steve Jobs.

My pope is Benedict.

I think it is quite remarkable actually that Pope Benedict has a sense of the variety of ways in which it is possible to be a Catholic. I think he is more comfortable with a plurality of expressions of Catholicism in different rites, traditions than many of us are.

To go back and read Swift and Defoe and Samuel Johnson and Smollett and Pope – all those people we had to read in college English courses – to read them now is to have one of the infinite pleasures in life.