Pope Francis Quotes

I am very much looking forward to being a parish priest.

I am grateful for the men and women who pastor, who lead in churches across our country. Ultimately, their role of loving people and seeing hearts changed is probably the greatest calling.

Let us pray for all good and faithful priests who dedicate themselves to their people with generosity and unknown sacrifices.

A preacher must be both soldier and shepherd. He must nourish, defend, and teach; he must have teeth in his mouth, and be able to bite and fight.

When a church is spending more of its budget on media than shepherding, something is out of whack. We have gotten things twisted around.

Yes, I was a parish priest for five years. I was a curate in a large working class parish in Bristol and the Vicar of a village in Kent.

Churches need to figure out how they will address the spiritual lives of their staffs and leadership teams.

Being a pastor is pressure because we have to counsel people.

Eighteen years ago, the Holy Spirit led me to establish a church in the heart of Times Square.

I have never had demands on me as acute as when I was a parish priest.

The church’s pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed incessantly … We have to find a new balance otherwise even the moral edifice of the church is likely to fall like a house of cards, losing the freshness and the fragrance of the Gospel.

Pastors must welcome the lost sheep. Actually, I made a mistake. I said welcome, rather, go out and find them.

Support your priests with your love and prayers, that they may always be shepherds after Christ’s heart

Preachers are always pleasant company when they are off duty.

We have so many priests who have gone half way … it’s sad that they did not manage to go the whole way; they have something of the employee in them, something of the bureaucrat in them and this is not good for the Church. Please be careful you don’t fall into this! You are becoming pastors in the image of Jesus, the good pastor. Your aim is to resemble him and act on behalf of him amidst his flock, letting his sheep graze.

I used to be married to a pastor, and I had a church for two years. Pastors are just men, too, with a different job description than others. We're all called to bear one another's burdens. We're all called to pray for the sick. They do it on a larger scale, but they're just a man. A lot of women don't think that. Trust me. I know.

Pastoring the flock with words. I love that. We always have a prayer time in the middle of our service. We take about eight or ten minutes before I preach, after we've sung, and invite people to come forward for prayer. That's a tender moment to me. I don't preach much in that, but I like to speak to the people.

I'm a huge admirer of Pope Francis and everything he stands for. I think he's an incredibly connected spiritual and authentic being.

Quit acting like a wolf, and feel the shepherd's love filling you.

Solitude, community, and ministry are certainly not just for celibates! Celibates also have a hard time keeping up.

Alas for the unhappy man that is called to stand in the pulpit, and not give the bread of life.

We preachers, people entrust us with their time week after week. I'm still stunned that people will let me talk to them for thirty minutes about anything I want to. It's a wonderful treasure that we are to steward.

When a leader in the Church inspires council members with vision, he helps them focus on their real mission so that they are ministering to people rather than merely administering programs.

Vision is something pastors and churches cannot afford to live without.

I'm first a pastor and then a writer.