Pope Francis Quotes

In the name of religion many great and fine deeds have been performed. In the name of religion also, thousands and millions have been killed, and every possible crime has been committed.

Religion is violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism and tribalism and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women, and coercive toward children.

No nations are more warlike than those which profess Christianity.

Religious fundamentalism, even before it eliminates human beings by perpetrating horrendous killings, eliminates God himself, turning him into a mere ideological pretext.

Religion is a by-product of fear. For much of human history it may have been a necessary evil, but why was it more evil than necessary? Isn’t killing people in the name of god a pretty good definition of insanity?

With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.

Roger Williams... successfully vindicated the right of private judgment in matters of conscience, and effected a moral and political revolution in all governments of the civilized world.

More people have been killed by religious philosophy … yet we do not prevent their books from being distributed.

We came down on them like a flood! We went out among their cities! We tore down the idol-temples, We shat on the Buddha's head!

Liberty of thinking, and of expressing our thoughts, is always fatal to priestly power…

Virtually every instance of terrorism in recent years has evoked a God who is perceived to be engaged in cosmic warfare. These imagined battles are about power and politics and more: freedom, civilization and life itself.

Our rights are interconnected and inseparable. When freedom of expression is threatened, the rights to freedom of association and assembly, of thought, conscience and religion, are also compromised.

It's okay for Christians throughout centuries to exterminate races and for their priests to rape little kids throughout decades, but trying to give the people the power to think and be individual, that's evil?

Only religion can lead to such evil.

Iraq's invasion of Kuwait is a case of bad men doing wrong things for wicked reasons. This is the full-sized or standard purebred evil and is easily recognized even by moral neophytes. Other malignities-drugs in America, famine in Africa and everything in the Middle East-are more complex. When combating those evils people sometimes have trouble deciding whom to shoot.

In the past, most wars were motivated by the idea of nationhood. Today, however, wars are incited above all using religion as an excuse.

Well, it has done terrifying things. Religious ideas are inflammatory in a way that I find difficult to understand. There are very few wars over the theory of relativity. Very few heated arguments, for that matter. Whereas, in Northern Ireland, they are killing one another over religion.

It's obvious that humanity continues to be torn by religious violence.

Religion is the root of quite a lot of evil.

As long as there are those who are willing to shed blood and take innocent life in the name of religion, the name of God, the world will never know a true and lasting peace.

When has religion ever been unifying? Religion has introduced many wars in this world, enough bloodshed and violence.

I believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind.

I have found that the greatest stories of acceptance and love and the ugliest stories of hideous cruelty and abuse have equally been perpetrated in the name of Christian faith.

In a world where the name of God is sometimes associated with vengeance and even a duty of hatred and violence, this message is both timely and significant.

Any attempt to replace a personal conscience by a collective conscience does violence to the individual and is the first step toward totalitarianism.