Papal Prerogative Quotes

The Romanists have, with great adroitness, drawn three walls round themselves, with which they have hitherto protected themselves, so that no one could reform them, whereby all Christendom has fallen terribly. Firstly, if pressed by the temporal power, they have affirmed and maintained that the temporal power has no jurisdiction over them, but, on the contrary, that the spiritual power is above the temporal. Secondly, if it were proposed to admonish them with the Scriptures, they objected that no one may interpret the Scriptures but the Pope. Thirdly, if they are threatened with a council, they pretend that no one may call a council but the Pope.

The most harmful thing in Christianity … is the leadership of one man in the Church—for instance, the pope, and his supposed infallibility. It is precisely in the dogma of his infallibility that the greatest mistake is contained, for the pope is a sinful man

The Vatican has to strike a difficult balance between running a country and running a religious institution.

I didn't really start writing about the church in earnest until the mid-2000s, so I wasn't present for or a participant in a lot of the John Paul II-era debates about papal authority.

In the Papal System, Government and Religion are in a manner consolidated, and that is found to be the worst of government.

It is the custom of the Roman Church which I unworthily serve with the help of God, to tolerate some things, to turn a blind eye to some, following the spirit of discretion rather than the rigid letter of the law.

As for your pope of whom you speak, he must be mad to speak of giving away countries that do not belong to him.

Anybody can be Pope; the proof of this is that I have become one.

The Vatican is the last absolute monarchy on earth.

He spoke like a professor and forgot that he had since become Pope.

But as the Pope has a long arm, which might reach me in France, I have gone a little out of the way to tell him the plain truths contained in these pages.

I wouldn't take the Pope too seriously. He's a Pole first, a pope second, and maybe a Christian third.

I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it.

I can't speak to the differences within the Catholic Church.

The Pope is not a political figure.

Undoubtedly, to the Pope, all things are allowable ; that is, all things that belong by divine right to ecclesiastical authority. He is free to make new laws and to do away the old ones. Only it is not in his power to change anything which, by the word of God, has eternal validity.

The Pope is the man, and the Pope can do whatever the Pope wants to do.

The Romanists have affirmed and maintained that the temporal power has no jurisdiction over them, but, on the contrary, that the spiritual power is above the temporal.