Quotes from Pope Francis

Our life is made up of time, and time is a gift from God, so it is important that it be used in good and fruitful actions.

My authoritarian and quick manner of making decisions led me to have serious problems and to be accused of being ultraconservative. I have never been a right-winger. It was my authoritarian way of making decisions that created problems.

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.

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.

Every man, every woman who has to take up the service of government, must ask themselves two questions: 'Do I love my people in order to serve them better? Am I humble and do I listen to everybody, to diverse opinions in order to choose the best path?' If you don't ask those questions, your governance will not be good.

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.

Gratitude is a flower that blooms in noble souls.

We must overcome...all forms of racism. The problem of intolerance should be dealt with as a whole: every time a minority is persecuted and marginalized...the good of the whole society is in danger.

Sunday is the Lord's Day. Let us find time to be with him.

God asks everything of us, yet at the same time he offers everything to us.

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

To use a telling phrase of the Reverend Martin Luther King, we can say that we have defaulted on a promissory note and now is the time to honor it.