Pope Paul VI Quotes

Common participation in the Eucharist can only be a final outcome of ecumenic dialogue, not the starting point.

Nationalism - in other words, the dividing of the church into bodies - consisting of such and such a nation, is a novelty, not above three centuries old, although many dear children of God are found dwelling in it.

I hope that by going to visit the pope I have enabled everybody to see that the words Catholic and Protestant, as ordinarily used, are completely out of date. They are almost always used now purely for propaganda purposes. That is why so much trouble is caused by them.

This common prayer project has taken years of energy, but we see it not as a way to leave our individual churches, but as a movement we hope to see permeate the larger Church.

I really do feel that these people are brothers and sisters in God's family. I am looking to build bridges with the Orthodox Church, looking to build bridges with the Catholic Church, with the Anglican church.

If there were two princes in Christendom who had good will and courage, it would be very easy to reconcile the religious difficulties; there is only one Jesus Christ and one faith, and all the rest is a dispute over trifles.

I have tried to kill sectarianism, whether in Catholics or Protestants.

It is particularly moving, and I can say this also as a Protestant Christian, that a German - one of us - has been made Pope.

Nothing does more to activate Christian divisions than talk about Christian unity.

The first two crusades brought the flower of European chivalry to Constantinople and restored that spiritual union between Eastern and Western Christendom that had been interrupted by the great schism of the Greek and Roman Churches.

Pope Benedict is an amazingly visionary person. What he has done is establish an evolutionary process that will help undo the Reformation. The Anglican Church has been hijacked by modernism, with synods trying to amend the faith and this process will allow traditional Anglicans to be themselves.

And if the imam and the Muslim leadership in that community is so intent on building bridges, then they should voluntarily move the mosque away from ground zero and move it whether it's uptown or somewhere else, but move it away from that area, the same as the pope directed the Carmelite nuns to move a convent away from Auschwitz.

Hold firmly that our faith is identical with that of the ancients. Deny this, and you dissolve the unity of the Church.

I hope the day that all the Christians are one. This is my dream.

I think what has happened, actually, is that September 11 has given a spur, a renewed urgency, to dialogue between the great faiths.

I'm on record as being understood to be a supporter of a reformed establishment, in which other Christian denominations, and other faiths, play a major part.

I do feel that federation, loose parallel processes, are less than we've got, less than we could have and, in the very long run, less than what God wants in the Church.

… very dangerous … because its aim is to introduce a mingling of Protestants and Catholics

The ecumenical movement was exceedingly important, if not absolutely essential, to the Vatican's march toward unrestrained power in America. It halted, then blocked, criticism of the Catholic Church by all leading Protestant denominations. This no doubt contributed to the Catholic Church's success in silencing all criticism of the hierarchy's actions in the lay press.

The principle of tolerance and respect for freedom promoted by the reforms of the Second Vatican Council are today being manipulated and erroneously taken too far.

I'm theologically in line with the Roman Catholic Church. I believe in the authority of the church, but I also have tremendous respect for my brothers and sisters in other Christian faiths.

5SM is an ecumenical movement.

I shall use such influence as I have in emphasizing the basic truths common to all denominations, in lowering denominational barriers and in promoting effective cooperation among Christians of whatever creed.

Our Faith will never be true unless it is united to that of St. Peter and the Pontiff, his successors.

It is time that the Protestant Church, the Church of the Son, should be one again with the Roman Catholic Church, the Church of the Father. It is time that man shall cease, first to live in the flesh, with joy, and then, unsatisfied, to renounce and to mortify the flesh.