Pope Benedict XVI Quotes

Ten years ago, 15 years ago, I think the church would have been asleep at the switch. This level of activism and engagement with the needs of society by local churches I never thought I'd see it in my lifetime.

I think most of us sense that it is a responsibility of the humanities to try to help better the conduct of human beings in their lives and manifold professional activities.

Distance does not decide who is your brother and who is not. The church is going to have to become the conscience of the free market if it's to have any meaning in this world - and stop being its apologist.

I think public life for me has a slightly didactic role, OK.

Government has crowded out the role of many social institutions, including the Church, that have been a great force for good in public life.

In the community, in the African-American community, one person ought to say something, and that is the minister. The minister is paid by the people. He doesn't work for a big company. He doesn't represent a particular special interest.

The public is a part of my real life.

Standards of conduct appropriate to civil society or the workings of a democracy cannot be purely and simply applied to the Church.

To get people to do needed things is the perennial hard task of government, not to mention of religion and philosophy.

The thing I would most like to see invented is a way of teaching children and grown-ups the difference between right and wrong.

Since belief determines behavior, doesn't it make sense that we should be teaching ethical, moral values in every home and in every school in America?

As Americans, we're not sure we share values. We're sometimes even afraid to use the word 'values.' We talk about teaching ethics in schools - people say, 'What ethics? Whose ethics? Maybe we can't.' And they confuse that with teaching of religion.

The church, inserted and active in human society and in history, does not exist in order to exercise political power or to govern the society.

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

Insofar as the church fails to do the will of God, I am called upon to help it discover and to do the will of God; and I am called upon to help the government to do the same.

The temptations are great to simply retreat to the domain of private life and give up on our public problems.

We need to get back to reasoning and thinking things through. The future generation is being brought up in greed and without a true understanding of civics. There is no more emphasis on knowledge and time. As a society we need to process ideas and understand what certain principles are based upon.

No, we are not the master of the state, said King. We are not the servant of the state. We are the conscience of the state. The churches or the religious community should be, I think, the conscience of the state. We're not just service providers.

The role of the church and the government are fundamentally different. The church must always show compassion - always.

Isn't it interesting that we can see the necessity of teaching ethnic pride and not ethical pride? The Ten Commandments aren't being taught any more than black history. Don't you think that just might have something to do with the way our young people are behaving?

The church ... is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state.

A Bible and a newspaper in every house, a good school in every district ... are the principle support of virtue, morality and civil liberty.

I derive a lot of the values that I try to bring into the public sphere from my private faith.

You are not born corrupt. We want to change that mind-set of the people.

We are concerned in public affairs, but immersed in our private ones.