Joseph Ratzinger

“The essential ecclesiological purpose of the college of bishops is not to form a central ecclesiastical government, but precisely the reverse: to help build up the Church as an organism that grows in living cells and is alive and one.”

“[T]here is no boundary beyond which the authentic history of the faith ceases, after which we find nothing but straw.”

“We cannot give life to others without giving up our own lives.”

"The strength in which the Vicar of Christ must come to resemble his Lord is the strength of love that is ready for martyrdom."

"We can give a meaningful answer to the questions raised only if we . . . are able to express the logic of the Faith in its integrity, the good sense and reasonableness of its view of reality and life."

"What gave European culture its foundation - the search for God and the readiness to listen to him - remains today the basis for any genuine culture."

“In this sense, Paul can say: the Gentiles are a law to themselves—not in the sense of modern liberal notions of autonomy which preclude transcendence of the subject, but in the much deeper sense that nothing belongs less to me than I myself.”

“To be a Christian is to be one who hopes; it is to situate oneself on the foundation of a sure hope.”

“If God has truly assumed manhood then he participates, as man, in the presence of God, which embraces all ages.”

“The ‘biological’ and the human are inseparable in the figure of Mary, just as are the human and the ‘theological.’”

"Only when the person is struck and opened up by Christ in his inmost depth can the other also be inwardly touched, can there be reconciliation in the Holy Spirit, can true community grow."

"Becoming a Christian means becoming communio and thereby entering into the mode of being of the Holy Spirit."

"The religions can encounter one another only by delving more deeply into the truth, not by giving it up. Skepticism does not unite. Nor does sheer pragmatism."

"Man is God's image precisely insofar as being 'from,' 'with,' and 'for' constitute the fundamental anthropological pattern."

"When it is said of man that he is the image of God, it indicates that he is the being designed for being-in-relation."

"The life of the counsels is not a matter for specialists, but the spirit of the whole."

" Communio was founded to attract and bring together Christians simply on the basis of their common faith."

"Relativity toward the other constitutes the human person. The human person is the event or being of relativity."

"Today we need the maximum of specialized economic understanding, but also truly ethical powers for ordering economics to the human good."

"Faith does not destroy philosophy but defends it, and only when doing so is theology true to itself."

"The crisis of catechesis and of the sources of our faith must be addressed if catechesis is to remain a vital function of the Church."