VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis, who died on Monday, had an informal, lighthearted speaking style, and sometimes he even created words in a combination of his native Spanish with the Italian that he spoke as pope.
Some of his memorable quotes:
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FILE - Pope Francis, left, meets Pope emeritus Benedict XVI in Castel Gandolfo, Italy, on Saturday, March 23, 2013. Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI has emerged from his self-imposed silence inside the Vatican to publish a lengthy letter to one of Italy's most well-known atheists. In it, he defends his record on handling sexually abusive priests and discusses everything from evolution to theology to the figure of Jesus Christ. Excerpts of the letter were published Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2013 by La Repubblica, the same newspaper which just two weeks ago published a similar letter from Pope Francis to its own atheist publisher. The letters indicate the two men in white, who live across the Vatican gardens from one another, are pursuing a collaborative campaign of sorts to engage non-believers. (AP Photo/Pool Photo via AP, file)
FILE - Pope Francis speaks during an interview with The Associated Press at The Vatican, Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2023. Pope Francis said there's a risk that what could be a trailblazing reform process in the German church could become "ideological." (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini, File)
FILE - Pope Francis speaks during an interview with The Associated Press at the Vatican, Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2023. Francis acknowledged that Catholic bishops in some parts of the world support laws that criminalize homosexuality or discriminate against the LGBTQ community, and he himself referred to homosexuality in terms of "sin." (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini, File)
FILE - Pope Francis, standing alone at center, delivers an Urbi et orbi prayer from the empty St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Friday, March 27, 2020. “We have realized that we are on the same boat, all of us fragile and disoriented, but at the same time, important and needed, all of us called to row together, each of us in need of comforting the other.” (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino, File)
FILE - Pope Francis is flanked by his spokesperson Matteo Bruni, left, as he addresses journalists during his flight from Rome to Maputo, Mozambique, Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2019. "It’s an honor if the Americans attack me.” -- Quip to French journalist-author Nicholas Seneze, referring to U.S. conservative criticism, aboard the papal plane. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino, file)
FILE - Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayeb, Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Mosque, left, talks with Pope Francis during a private audience in the Apostolic Palace, at the Vatican, Monday, May 23, 2016. "The meeting is the message.” - Meeting Sheik Ahmed el-Tayeb, the grand imam of Al-Azhar, the prestigious Sunni Muslim center of learning, after a long freeze in relations. (Max Rossi/Pool Photo via AP, File)
FILE - Pope Francis, left, reaches to embrace Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill after signing a joint declaration at the Jose Marti International airport in Havana, Cuba, Friday, Feb. 12, 2016. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia, Pool, File)
FILE - Pope Francis speaks during a news conference aboard the papal flight on its way back from Brazil, Monday, July 29, 2013. Pope Francis reached out to gays on Monday, saying he wouldn't judge priests for their sexual orientation in a remarkably open and wide-ranging news conference as he returned from his first foreign trip. "If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?" Francis asked. (Luca Zennaro/Pool Photo via AP, File)
FILE - Copies of the post-synodal apostolic encyclical 'Amoris Laetitia' (The Joy of Love) document, by Pope Francis, are on display prior to the start of a press conference, at the Vatican, Friday, April 8, 2016. "Footnote 351; "I want to remind priests that the confessional must not be a torture chamber, but rather an encounter with the Lord's mercy. I would also point out that the Eucharist is not a prize for the perfect, but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak." (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini, File)
FILE - The helicopter carrying Pope Francis, sitting by the window at left, flies on its way to Castel Gandolfo, south of Rome, on March 23, 2013, to meet with Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI, where he has been living since resigning on Feb. 28, 2013. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini, file)
FILE - Pope Francis gestures as he delivers his Angelus prayer from the window of his studio overlooking St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Sunday, March 17, 2013. “In these days I’ve been able to read a book by a cardinal -- Cardinal Kasper, a good theologian -- about mercy. And this book has done me a lot of good, though don’t think I’m just doing publicity for my cardinals’ books! It’s not like that. But it’s done me so much good. Cardinal Kasper said that feeling mercy, this word changes everything. It’s the best thing we can feel: It changes the world. A bit of mercy makes the world less cold and more just.” (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia, File)
FILE - Pope Francis speaks during a meeting with the media at the Pope VI hall, at the Vatican, Saturday, March 16, 2013. Speaking of the moment of his election and his conversation with his friend, Cardinal Claudio Hummes, in the Sistine Chapel as the votes were going his way. “When things were looking dangerous, he encouraged me. And when the votes reached two-thirds, there was the usual applause, because the pope had been elected. And he gave me a hug and a kiss and said: ‘Don't forget the poor!’ And those words came to me: the poor, the poor. Then, right away, thinking of the poor, I thought of Francis of Assisi. Then I thought of all the wars, as the votes were still being counted, till the end. Francis is also the man of peace. That is how the name came into my heart: Francis of Assisi. … How I would like a Church which is poor and for the poor!” (AP Photo/Michael Sohn, File)
“Brothers and sisters, good evening!” -- Francis’ first words delivered from the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica after his election as pontiff on March 13, 2013.
“When the votes reached two-thirds, there was the usual applause, because the pope had been elected. And he gave me a hug and a kiss and said: ‘Don’t forget the poor!’ And those words came to me: the poor, the poor. Then, right away, thinking of the poor, I thought of Francis of Assisi. Then I thought of all the wars, as the votes were still being counted, till the end. Francis is also the man of peace. That is how the name came into my heart: Francis of Assisi. … How I would like a Church which is poor and for the poor!” — Francis, speaking to journalists on March 16, 2013, recounting how Cardinal Claudio Hummes gave him the idea of choosing the name Francis.
"The meeting is the message.” — Francis, upon meeting Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, the grand imam of Al-Azhar, the prestigious Sunni Muslim center of learning, after a long freeze in relations, May 23, 2016.
“It’s an honor if the Americans attack me.” — Francis’ quip to French journalist-author Nicholas Seneze, referring to U.S. conservative criticism, aboard the papal plane about Seneze’s book “How America Wants to Change the Pope,” Sept. 4, 2019.
“We have realized that we are on the same boat, all of us fragile and disoriented, but at the same time, important and needed, all of us called to row together, each of us in need of comforting the other.” — Francis, praying for an end to the coronavirus pandemic in St. Peter’s Square, March 27, 2020.
“I am sorry. I ask forgiveness, in particular, for the ways in which many members of the church and of religious communities cooperated, not least through their indifference, in projects of cultural destruction and forced assimilation promoted by the governments of that time, which culminated in the system of residential schools.” — Francis, apologizing for abuses of Indigenous peoples in Canada’s residential schools, at the site of a former school in Maskwacis, Alberta, July 25, 2022.
“I don’t know if you’re familiar with this theological-cultural history, that the guardian angels of some countries got mad with God and told him: ‘Father, you were unfair to us … you gave each of our countries a wealth: cattle, agriculture, mining. And to the Argentines you gave them everything. Everything! They have all the wealth.’ And it is said that God thought a little. ‘But to balance it out, I gave Argentina Argentines.’" — Francis, in an interview with The Associated Press, Jan. 24, 2023.
“Being homosexual is not a crime.”— Francis, in an interview with The Associated Press, referring to countries that criminalize homosexuality, Jan. 24, 2023.
FILE - Pope Francis, left, meets Pope emeritus Benedict XVI in Castel Gandolfo, Italy, on Saturday, March 23, 2013. Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI has emerged from his self-imposed silence inside the Vatican to publish a lengthy letter to one of Italy's most well-known atheists. In it, he defends his record on handling sexually abusive priests and discusses everything from evolution to theology to the figure of Jesus Christ. Excerpts of the letter were published Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2013 by La Repubblica, the same newspaper which just two weeks ago published a similar letter from Pope Francis to its own atheist publisher. The letters indicate the two men in white, who live across the Vatican gardens from one another, are pursuing a collaborative campaign of sorts to engage non-believers. (AP Photo/Pool Photo via AP, file)
FILE - Pope Francis speaks during an interview with The Associated Press at The Vatican, Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2023. Pope Francis said there's a risk that what could be a trailblazing reform process in the German church could become "ideological." (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini, File)
FILE - Pope Francis speaks during an interview with The Associated Press at the Vatican, Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2023. Francis acknowledged that Catholic bishops in some parts of the world support laws that criminalize homosexuality or discriminate against the LGBTQ community, and he himself referred to homosexuality in terms of "sin." (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini, File)
FILE - Pope Francis, standing alone at center, delivers an Urbi et orbi prayer from the empty St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Friday, March 27, 2020. “We have realized that we are on the same boat, all of us fragile and disoriented, but at the same time, important and needed, all of us called to row together, each of us in need of comforting the other.” (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino, File)
FILE - Pope Francis is flanked by his spokesperson Matteo Bruni, left, as he addresses journalists during his flight from Rome to Maputo, Mozambique, Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2019. "It’s an honor if the Americans attack me.” -- Quip to French journalist-author Nicholas Seneze, referring to U.S. conservative criticism, aboard the papal plane. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino, file)
FILE - Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayeb, Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Mosque, left, talks with Pope Francis during a private audience in the Apostolic Palace, at the Vatican, Monday, May 23, 2016. "The meeting is the message.” - Meeting Sheik Ahmed el-Tayeb, the grand imam of Al-Azhar, the prestigious Sunni Muslim center of learning, after a long freeze in relations. (Max Rossi/Pool Photo via AP, File)
FILE - Pope Francis, left, reaches to embrace Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill after signing a joint declaration at the Jose Marti International airport in Havana, Cuba, Friday, Feb. 12, 2016. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia, Pool, File)
FILE - Pope Francis speaks during a news conference aboard the papal flight on its way back from Brazil, Monday, July 29, 2013. Pope Francis reached out to gays on Monday, saying he wouldn't judge priests for their sexual orientation in a remarkably open and wide-ranging news conference as he returned from his first foreign trip. "If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?" Francis asked. (Luca Zennaro/Pool Photo via AP, File)
FILE - Copies of the post-synodal apostolic encyclical 'Amoris Laetitia' (The Joy of Love) document, by Pope Francis, are on display prior to the start of a press conference, at the Vatican, Friday, April 8, 2016. "Footnote 351; "I want to remind priests that the confessional must not be a torture chamber, but rather an encounter with the Lord's mercy. I would also point out that the Eucharist is not a prize for the perfect, but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak." (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini, File)
FILE - The helicopter carrying Pope Francis, sitting by the window at left, flies on its way to Castel Gandolfo, south of Rome, on March 23, 2013, to meet with Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI, where he has been living since resigning on Feb. 28, 2013. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini, file)
FILE - Pope Francis gestures as he delivers his Angelus prayer from the window of his studio overlooking St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Sunday, March 17, 2013. “In these days I’ve been able to read a book by a cardinal -- Cardinal Kasper, a good theologian -- about mercy. And this book has done me a lot of good, though don’t think I’m just doing publicity for my cardinals’ books! It’s not like that. But it’s done me so much good. Cardinal Kasper said that feeling mercy, this word changes everything. It’s the best thing we can feel: It changes the world. A bit of mercy makes the world less cold and more just.” (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia, File)
FILE - Pope Francis speaks during a meeting with the media at the Pope VI hall, at the Vatican, Saturday, March 16, 2013. Speaking of the moment of his election and his conversation with his friend, Cardinal Claudio Hummes, in the Sistine Chapel as the votes were going his way. “When things were looking dangerous, he encouraged me. And when the votes reached two-thirds, there was the usual applause, because the pope had been elected. And he gave me a hug and a kiss and said: ‘Don't forget the poor!’ And those words came to me: the poor, the poor. Then, right away, thinking of the poor, I thought of Francis of Assisi. Then I thought of all the wars, as the votes were still being counted, till the end. Francis is also the man of peace. That is how the name came into my heart: Francis of Assisi. … How I would like a Church which is poor and for the poor!” (AP Photo/Michael Sohn, File)
