Quotable Benedict

From talks and interviews given during several visits he made to the U.S. when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, from his homily to cardinals before the conclave that elected him and from his first message as pope after the election, here are some quotations from Pope Benedict XVI:

* "Today, we seem to know more about how to build bombs than to judge whether it is moral to use them." -- 1984 talk in Dallas

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* "If we do not have spiritual and moral reasons on how to answer the challenges of our time, if we only have technical power, then we are really poor and the problems are unresolvable." -- 1984 interview with St. Paul-Minneapolis Catholic newspaper

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* A priest "has to lead people to reconciliation" and "must be ready before all else to stand by people in their tribulations." -- 1990 talk in Philadelphia

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* "Sexual desire, drugs and the sale of armaments have formed an unholy trio whose lethal net stretches ever more oppressively over the world's peoples." -- 1990 talk in Washington, D.C.

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* "It is an important challenge to find the Christian articulation of the special dignity of women." -- 1991 interview with Dallas Catholic newspaper

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* "If we cannot have common values, common truths, sufficient communication on the essentials of human life -- how to live, how to respond to the great challenges of human life -- then true society becomes impossible." -- 1999 interview with San Francisco Catholic newspaper

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* An authentic proclamation of the Gospel "allows people to preserve their own cultural identity" and forms a believing community "marked by a universality which can embrace every culture." -- 1999 talk in San Francisco

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"The mercy of Christ is not a cheap grace; it does not presume a trivialization of evil. Christ carries in His body and on His soul all the weight of evil and all its destructive force. He burns and transforms evil through suffering, in the fire of His suffering love." -- April 18 homily at the opening Mass of the conclave that elected him

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"We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one's own ego and one's own desires." -- April 18 homily at the opening Mass of the conclave that elected him

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"Being an 'adult' means having a faith which does not follow the waves of today's fashions or the latest novelties. A faith which is deeply rooted in friendship with Christ is adult and mature." -- April 18 homily at the opening Mass of the conclave that elected him

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"Friendship with Christ coincides with what is said in the third request of the Our Father: 'Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.'" -- April 18 homily at the opening Mass of the conclave that elected him

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"I wish to affirm with force my decided will to pursue the commitment to enact Vatican Council II....With the passing of time, the conciliar documents have not lost their timeliness." -- April 20 Mass with the College of Cardinals

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"The Church today must revive within herself an awareness of the task to present the world again with the voice of the one who said: 'I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life.'" -- April 20 Mass with the College of Cardinals

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"I address myself to everyone, even to those who follow other religions or who are simply seeking an answer to the fundamental questions of life and have not yet found it...to assure them that the Church wants to continue to build an open and sincere dialogue with them, in a search for the true good of mankind and of society." -- April 20 Mass with the College of Cardinals

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"I am particularly thinking of young people....I will continue to maintain a dialogue, listening to your expectations in an attempt to help you meet ever more profoundly the living, ever young Christ." -- April 20 Mass with the College of Cardinals

(4/28/05)