12 Quotes by Joseph Ratzinger

The human person finds his perfection "in seeking and loving what is true and good.

What happened after the Council was totally different: in the place of liturgy as the fruit of development came fabricated liturgy. We left the living process of growth and development to enter the realm of fabrication. There was no longer a desire to continue developing and maturing, as the centuries passed and so this was replaced—as if it were a technical production—with a construction, a banal on-the-spot product.

The real ""action"" in the liturgy in which we are all supposed to participate is the action of God himself. This is what is new and distinctive about the Christian liturgy: God himself acts and does what is essential.

Men and women were created to be jointly the guarantee of the future of the humanity - not only a physical guarantee, but also a moral one.

Our hearts are full of sadness, yet at the same time (full) of joyful hope and profound gratitude.

When you are studying theology, your intention is not to learn a trade but to understand the faith, and this presupposes, as we said a while ago, using the words of Augustine, that the faith is true, that, in other words, it opens the door to a correct understanding of your own life, of the world and of men.

proclaim forgiveness and reconciliation, which are the only way to achieve stable harmony.

Your commitment is an expression of pastoral concern for every human being who may never become a means, but must always remain an end.

There is one thing we must not forget: it has always been the Mother who reached people in missionary situations and made Christ accessible to them. That is especially true of Latin America. Here, to some extent, Christianity arrived by way of Spanish swords, with deadly heralds.