Pope Francis in 10 quotes

– Humility –

“Pray for me” — pronounced at the end of every speech, because, he once explained, “I am a sinner too.” His first tweet and first post on Instagram were versions of the mantra.

– The poor –

“How I would like a poor church for the poor” — setting the tone for his pontificate, three days after his election in March 2013.

– Tolerance –

“If someone is gay and is searching for the Lord and has good will, then who am I to judge him?” — groundbreaking signal of a more tolerant Church, July 2013.

– Inequality –

“The worship of the ancient golden calf has returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money and the dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly human purpose” — opposition to economic inequality spelled out in an Apostolic Exhortation in 2013.

– Environment –

“The Earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth” — from his June 2015 encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si.

– Developing world –

“The land of the southern poor is rich and mostly unpolluted, yet access to ownership of goods and resources for meeting vital needs is inhibited by a system of commercial relations and ownership which is structurally perverse” — advocating the cause of the southern hemisphere in Laudato Si.

– Migrants –

“In this world of globalisation, we have fallen into a globalisation of indifference. We are accustomed to the suffering of others, it doesn’t concern us, it’s none of our business” — railing against the world closing its eyes to the plight of migrants, on the Italian island of Lampedusa in July 2013.

– Shooting from the hip –

“Some people think, and excuse the term, that to be good Catholics, they must be like rabbits” — typically pithy, improvised comment to reports on the papal plane, January 2015.

– Church reform –

“There is no sin that God’s mercy cannot reach and wipe away when it finds a repentant heart seeking to be reconciled with the Father” — Pope Francis, November 2016

“A Curia that is not self-critical, that does not stay up-to-date, that does not seek to better itself, is an ailing body… It is the sickness of the rich fool who thinks he will live for all eternity…” — from his December 2014 attack on the Vatican establishment, which he accused in the same speech of suffering from “spiritual Alzheimer’s”.

– Mercy –

“There is no sin that God’s mercy cannot reach and wipe away when it finds a repentant heart seeking to be reconciled with the Father” — extending permanently his decree allow priests to grant absolution to women who have had abortions, at the end of his Jubilee Year of Mercy in November 2016