Remembering Pope Benedict XVI

Pope Benedict XVI's death, on December 31, 2022, was one felt all throughout the Catholic community. About 65,000 pilgrims waited in line to pay their respects to the late pope on the first day his body lay in state in St. Peter's Basilica, according to Catholic News Agency.

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Highlights

By Abigail James (Catholic Online)
1/3/2023 (1 month ago)

Published in Living Faith

Keywords: Pope Benedict, Emeritus Benedict XVI, Benedict quotes

During his lifetime, Pope Benedict consistently emphasized the importance of faith and fostering a relationship with God. To honor the man of God, we have put together a list of some of his most notable quotes.

"Faith is not an illusion, a flight of fancy, a refuge or sentimentalism; rather it is total involvement in the whole of life and is the proclamation of the Gospel, the Good News that can set the whole of the person free." - Nov. 2012

"The God in whom we believe is a God of reason - a reason, to be sure, which is not a kind of cold mathematics of the universe but is one with love and with goodness. We make our prayer to God, and we appeal to humanity, that this reason -- the logic of love and the recognition of the power of reconciliation and peace -- may prevail over the threats arising from irrationalism or from a spurious and godless reason." - May 2006

"The person who abandons himself totally in God's hands does not become God's puppet, a boring 'yes man'; he does not lose his freedom. Only the person who entrusts himself totally to God finds true freedom, the great, creative immensity of the freedom of good." - Dec. 2005

"God is the foundation of hope: not any god, but the God who has a human face and who has loved us to the end, each one of us and humanity in its entirety. His kingdom is not an imaginary hereafter, situated in a future that will never arrive; his kingdom is present wherever he is loved and wherever his love reaches us." - Nov. 2007

"It is inconceivable, then, that believers should have to suppress a part of themselves - their faith - in order to be active citizens. It should never be necessary to deny God in order to enjoy one's rights. ... The full guarantee of religious liberty cannot be limited to the free exercise of worship but has to give due consideration to the public dimension of religion, and hence to the possibility of believers playing their part in building the social order." April 2008