Pope Francis: memorable quotes and sayings

VATICAN CITY, April 21(Reuters) - Below are some memorable quotes from Pope Francis, whose death at the age of 88 was announced by the Vatican on Monday. The quotes are arranged according to subjects that cropped up during his papacy, in chronological order within each theme.

"The Earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth ... The pace of consumption, waste and environmental change has so stretched the planet's capacity that our contemporary lifestyle, unsustainable as it is, can only precipitate catastrophes." From a major papal encyclical, a letter to the Church, which was dedicated to the environment and published on June 18, 2015.

"A selfish and boundless thirst for power and material prosperity leads both to the misuse of available natural resources and to the exclusion of the weak and disadvantaged," he said in comments to the United Nations in September 2015.

"The world in which we live is collapsing and may be nearing the breaking point," he said in a document released on October 4, 2023. "Despite all attempts to deny, conceal, gloss over or relativise the issue, the signs of climate change are here and increasingly evident."

"Hostility, extremism and violence are not born of a religious heart: they are betrayals of religion," he said during a visit to Ur, Iraq in March 2021.

"In Ukraine, rivers of blood and tears are flowing. This is not just a military operation but a war which sows death, destruction and misery," he said on March 6, 2022, referring to the Russian invasion of Ukraine that began on February 24, 2022.

"Let the attacks and weapons cease, please, because it must be understood that terrorism and war bring no solutions, but only to the death and suffering of many innocent lives. War is a defeat, every war is a defeat," he said on October 8, 2023, the day after Hamas fighters attacked southern Israel.

On November 22 that year Francis said he felt the pain of both Israelis and Palestinians as Israel continued its retaliatory strikes on Gaza. "This is not war. This is terrorism," he said.

"We must not be taken aback by their numbers, but rather view them as persons, seeing their faces and listening to their stories," he told the U.S. Congress in September 2015.

"It is violence to build walls and barriers to stop those who look for a place of peace," he said in a letter to a Church association in Albania in September 2015.

"It's hypocrisy to call yourself a Christian and chase away a refugee or someone seeking help, someone who is hungry or thirsty, toss out someone who is in need of my help," he told a meeting of German faithful at the Vatican in October 2016.

"The grave financial and economic crises of the present time ... have pushed man to seek satisfaction, happiness and security in consumption and earnings out ...
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