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Pope Benedict XVI Quotes - Page 11

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The examination of conscience has an important educational value. it teaches us to look sincerely at our own lives, to compare them with the truth of the Gospel and to evaluate them with parameters that are not only

The examination of conscience has an important educational value. it teaches us to look sincerely at our own lives, to compare them with the truth of the Gospel and to evaluate them with parameters that are not only human but drawn from divine Revelation. Comparison with the Commandments, with the Beatitudes, and above all with the Precept to love, represents the first great 'school of penance

Pope Benedict XVI
Educational, School, Important

Praying actualizes and deepens our communion with God. Our prayer can and should arise above all from our heart, from our needs, our hopes, our joys, our sufferings, from our shame over sin, and from our gratitude from the good. It can and should be a wholly personal prayer.

Pope Benedict XVI
Gratitude, Prayer, Heart
Pope Benedict XVI (2009). “Jesus of Nazareth”, Rizzoli International Publications

The life of the community, both domestically and internationally, clearly demonstrates that respect for rights, and the guarantees that follow from them, are measures of the common good that serve to evaluate the relationship between justice and injustice, development and poverty, security and conflict.

Pope Benedict XVI
Guarantees That, Rights, Justice
Statement to the United Nations General Assembly, delivered 18 April 2008, New York, NY

While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia.

Pope Benedict XVI
War, Exercise, Punishment
"War and Capital Punishment" by Jimmy Akin, www.catholic.com. March 2, 2005.

Love has a particular trait: far from being indulgent or fickle, it has a task or purpose to fulfil: to abide. By its nature love is enduring. Again, dear friends, we catch a further glimpse of how much the Holy Spirit offers our world: love which dispels uncertainty; love which overcomes the fear of betrayal; love which carries eternity within; the true love which draws us into a unity that abides!

Pope Benedict XVI
Life, Betrayal, Love Is
Pope Benedict XVI's Prayer Vigil with The Young People, w2.vatican.va. July 19, 2008.

Jesus resolved the false opposition between obedience and freedom and opened the path to freedom

Pope Benedict XVI
Jesus, Path, Obedience

A world filled with temptations needs priests who are totally dedicated to their mission. Accordingly, they are asked in a very special way to open themselves fully to serving others as Christ did by embracing the gift of celibacy.

Pope Benedict XVI
Temptation, Special, Needs

The Eucharistic sacrifice of the body and blood of Christ embraces in turn the mystery of our Lord's continuing passion in the members of his mystical body, the church in every age.

Pope Benedict XVI
Passion, Sacrifice, Blood
Sermon of Benedict XVI, w2.vatican.va. September 18, 2010.

You have suffered grievously and I am truly sorry. I know that nothing can undo the wrong you have endured. Your trust has been betrayed and your dignity has been violated.

Pope Benedict XVI
Sorry, Abuse, Church
"Pope Benedict's apology" by Andrew Brown, www.theguardian.com. March 20, 2010.

The horizon of love is truly boundless: it is the whole world!

Pope Benedict XVI
Love Is, Horizon, World

Prudence does not mean failing to accept responsibilities and postponing decisions; it means being committed to making joint decisions after pondering responsibly the road to be taken, decisions aimed at strengthening that covenant between human beings and the environment, which should mirror the creative love of God, from whom we came and towards whom we are journeying.

Pope Benedict XVI
Taken, Mean, Responsibility
Pope Benedict XVI's Message for The Celebration of The World Day of Peace, w2.vatican.va. January 1, 2008.

These days we are all pained by the disaster caused by the hurricane in the United States of America.

Pope Benedict XVI
America, United States, Hurricanes

Perhaps reluctantly we come to acknowledge that there are also scars which mark the surface of our earth: erosion, deforestation, the squandering of the world’s mineral and ocean resources in order to fuel an insatiable consumption.

Pope Benedict XVI
Ocean, Order, Erosion
Pope Benedict XVI's address during The XXIII World Youth Day in Sydney Harbour, Australia, w2.vatican.va. July 17, 2008.

It is true that the Muslim world is not totally mistaken when it reproaches the West of Christian tradition of moral decadence and the manipulation of human life. ... Islam has also had moments of great splendor and decadence in the course of its history.

Pope Benedict XVI
Christian, Islam, World

Humanity today is rightly concerned about the ecological balance of tomorrow. It is important for assessments in this regard to be carried out prudently, in dialogue with experts and people of wisdom, uninhibited by ideological pressure to draw hasty conclusions, and above all with the aim of reaching agreement on a model of sustainable development capable of ensuring the well-being of all while respecting environmental balances.

Pope Benedict XVI
Assessment, Agreement, People
Message Of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI For The Celebration Of The World Day Of Peace, w2.vatican.va. January 1, 2008.

Since politics fundamentally should be a moral enterprise, the church in this sense has something to say about politics.

Pope Benedict XVI
Church, Moral, Should
"Transcript from papal plane en route to Mexico". www.ncronline.org. March 26, 2012.

Our Christian conviction is that Christ is also the messiah of Israel. Certainly it is in the hands of God how and when the unification of Jews and Christians into the people of God will take place.

Pope Benedict XVI
Christian, Israel, Hands
"God and the World: A Conversation with Peter Seewald". Book by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, October 06, 2000.

Which direction do we take? The one prompted by the passions or the one indicated by the star which shines in your conscience? The Magi heard the answer: "In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it is written by the prophet" (Mt 2: 5), and, enlightened by these words, they chose to press forward to the very end.

Pope Benedict XVI
Faith, Stars, Inspiration
Pope Benedict XVI's address during The XX World Youth Day in Cologne, Germany, w2.vatican.va. August 18, 2005.

Their example testifies that Baptism commits Christians to participating courageously in the spreading of the Kingdom of God, if need be cooperating with the sacrifice of life itself... This martyrdom of ordinary life constitutes a particularly important witness in the secularized society of our time. It is the peaceful battle of love which every Christian, like Paul, must fight without flagging: the race to spread the Gospel that involves us until our death. May the Virgin Mary, Queen of Martyrs and Star of Evangelization, help us in our daily witness.

Pope Benedict XVI
Christian, Queens, Stars
Pope Benedict XVI's Angelus, w2.vatican.va. October 28, 2007.

The wrath of God is a way of saying that I have been living in a way that is contrary to the love that is God. Anyone who begins to live and grow away from God, who lives away from what is good, is turning his life toward wrath.

Pope Benedict XVI
Wrath, Way, Grows
"God and the World. Believing and Living in Our Time". Book by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, June 11, 2002.

We live our lives by philosophies, amid worldly affairs and occupations that totally absorb us and are a great distance from the manger. In all kinds of ways, God has to prod us and reach out to us again and again, so that we can manage to escape from the muddle of our thoughts and activities and discover the way that leads to him. But a path exists for all of us. The Lord provides everyone with tailor-made signals.

Pope Benedict XVI
Faith, Philosophy, Distance

Although the constellations in which I have found myself - and naturally also the periods of life and their different influences - have led to changes and development in the accents of my thought, my basic impulse, precisely during the Council, was always to free up the authentic kernel of the faith from encrustations and to give this kernel strength and dynamism. This impulse is the constant of my life ... what's important to me is that I have never deviated from this constant, which from my childhood has molded my life, and that I have remained true to it as the basic direction of my life.

Pope Benedict XVI
Giving, Childhood, Important

Mission is a workshop where there is room for all.

Pope Benedict XVI
Rooms, Missions, Workshops

Meaning that is self-made is in the last analysis no meaning. Meaning, that is, the ground on which our existence as a totality can stand and live, cannot be made but only received.

Pope Benedict XVI
Self, Analysis, Lasts
Pope Benedict XVI (2004). “Introduction to Christianity”, p.73, Ignatius Press

From earliest times, water has always been acknowledged as a primary human good and an indispensable natural resource. Around the great rivers of the world, like the Mississippi, great cultures have developed, while over the course of the centuries the prosperity of countless societies has been linked to these waterways. Today, however, the great fluvial systems of every continent are exposed to serious threats, often as a result of man's activity and decisions.

Pope Benedict XVI
Men, Rivers, Water

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