Innocent III Quotes

Look to it, my dear friends, that none of you be found Christless at your appearance before him. Those that continue Christless now, will be left speechless then. God forbid that you that have heard so much of Christ, and you that have professed so much of Christ, should at last fall into a worse condition than those that never heard the name of Christ.

I would like to be Pope if I could.

O God and Lord, now the council condemns even Your own act and Your own law as heresy, since You Yourself did lay Your cause before Your Father as the just judge, as an example for us, whenever we are sorely oppressed.

The floor of Christendom and elsewhere is littered with wrecks made by old prophets. God won't stand nonsense from any man. Every man has to choose between Christ and Barabbas, and every Christian between God and some old prophet.

We are under God's power, and we can do nothing but by the power of God, and woe shall hereafter be to us if we abuse this power.

Our realm and subjects have been long wanderers, walking astray, whilst they were under the tuition of Romish pastors, who advised them to own a wolf [the Pope] for their head (in lieu of a careful shepherd) whose inventions, heresies and schisms be so numerous, that the flock of Christ have fed on poisonous shrubs for want of wholesome pastures.

Those who claim that the children of the faithful dying without sacramental baptism will not be saved, are stupid and presumptuous in saying this .… Just as Christ is God and man at the same time, so the consecrated host is at the same time the body of Christ and true bread. For it is Christ's body at least in figure and true bread in nature; or, which comes to the same thing, it is true bread naturally and Christ's body figuratively…. Oral confession to a priest, introduced by Pope Innocent, is not as necessary to people as he claimed. For if anyone offends his brother in thought, word or deed, then it suffices to repent in thought, word or deed…. That the pope is supreme pontiff is ridiculous. Christ approved such a dignity neither in Peter nor in anyone else…. The people may withhold tithes, offerings and other private alms from unworthy disciples of Christ.

Jesus said, 'Judge not, lest ye be judged.' Let's stop trying to choose the political leaders who we believe are the most godly because, in reality, only God knows people's hearts. You and I don't, and we are all sinners.

It is not your sin - it is your moderation that cries to heaven; your very sparingness in sin cries to heaven!

Those who saw Pope John Paul II either in person or through the mass media glimpsed a man who millions of Catholics believe may be one of the greatest popes in the history of the church.

Judge yourself; if you sincerely and humbly do that, you will not be judged by God.

Because I believe in a God of absolute and unbounded love, therefore I believe in a loving anger of His which will and must devour and destroy all which is decayed, monstrous, abortive in His universe till all enemies shall be put under His feet, and God shall be all in all.

I do not see them here; but after death God knows I know the faces I shall see, Each one a murdered self, with low last breath. 'I am thyself,what hast thou done to me?' 'And Iand Ithyself,' (lo! each one saith,) 'And thou thyself to all eternity!

No one should question the faith of others, for no human being can judge the ways of God.

It is simply not for us to judge each other. The Lord has reserved that right for Himself, because only He knows our hearts and understands the varying circumstances and complexities of our lives.

For when man comes to front the everlasting God, and look the splendor of His judgments in the face, personal integrity, the dream of spotlessness and innocence, vanishes into thin air: your decencies and your church-goings and your regularities and your attachment to a correct school and party, your gospel formulas of sound doctrine--what is all that, in front of the blaze of the wrath to come?

I really believe it's time for some of us to stop apologizing for God and start apologizing to Him for being embarrassed by the ways He has chosen to reveal Himself

On the day of my judgment, when I stand before God, and He asks me why did I kill one of his true miracles, what am I gonna say? That it was my job? My job?

I absolutely believe in Heaven and Hell. They're just like what the Bible says they are.

Somebody has been a complete ratbag all their life and they've gotten away with it, and they die happy and rich, we so much want to believe that they're going off to the halls of judgment, that their heart will be weighed against the feather of truth, that it will be heavy with sin and it will be eaten by a crocodile. It's almost essential to our well-being to have a fallback position like that. It may appear as if you've gotten away with it, but you'll pay for it later.

I believe what Jesus said, but Jesus never said priests couldn't be fools.

Give heed to the cause of the holy Roman Church, mother of all churches and teacher of the faith, whom you by the order of God, have consecrated by your blood. Against the Roman Church, you warned, lying teachers are rising, introducing ruinous sects, and drawing upon themselves speedy doom. Their tongues are fire, a restless evil, full of deadly poison. They have bitter zeal, contention in their hearts, and boast and lie against the truth.

You have told me, O God, to believe in hell. But you have forbidden me to think...of any man as damned

The cross stands high above the opinions of men and to that cross all opinions must come at last for judgment.