Benedict XVI or Francis? Can You Tell The Difference?

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Are Pope Francis & Pope Benedict polar opposites, championing competing visions of the Church? If so, it should be easy to distinguish the teaching and behavior of one from the other.... RIGHT?

Here are twenty-five meaningful quotations or deeds from the current and previous popes. Can you tell Pope Benedict from Pope Francis? Should be easy, right?

Created by: RC2
  1. Who said this? Benedict or Francis? "The church's pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently. Proclamation in a missionary style focuses on the essentials, on the necessary things: this is also what fascinates and attracts more, what makes the heart burn, as it did for the disciples at Emmaus."
  2. Benedict or Francis? "In Christianity it is not a matter of an enormous bundle of different things; all that the Creed says and the development of faith has achieved exists only to make our perception of the Face of God clearer. He exists and he is alive; we believe in him..."
  3. Which pope excommunicated Australian priest Greg Reynolds for advocating gay marriage and women priests?
  4. Who was the first pope to attend an anti-abortion march?
  5. Which Pope said this? "Love for widows and orphans, prisoners, and the sick and needy of every kind is as essential to her [the Church] as the ministry of the sacraments and preaching of the Gospel. The church cannot neglect the service of charity anymore than she can neglect the sacraments and the word."
  6. Which pope said this? ""Love of God and love of neighbor have become one: In the least of the brethren we find Jesus himself, and in Jesus we find God."
  7. Which pope installed solar panels at Paul VI hall, enough to power the entire Vatican?
  8. BXVI or Francis? "Attention to human life, especially that in greatest difficulty, that is, to the sick, the elderly, children, deeply involves the mission of the Church. The Church also feels called to participate in the debate that relates to human life, presenting its proposal based on the Gospel. In many places, the quality of life is related primarily to economic means, to "well-being", to the beauty and enjoyment of the physical, forgetting other more profound dimensions of existence "” interpersonal, spiritual and religious. In fact, in the light of faith and right reason, human life is always sacred and always "of quality". "
  9. BXVI or Francis? ""Children have the right to grow up in a family with a father and mother capable of creating a suitable environment for the child's development and emotional maturity." "
  10. BXVI or Francis? [the]"crisis in the family has produced an ecological crisis, for social environments, like natural environments, need protection. And although the human race has come to understand the need to address conditions that menace our natural environments, we have been slower "” we have been slower in our culture, and also in our Catholic culture "” to recognize that our fragile social environments are also at risk. It is therefore essential that we foster a new human ecology."
  11. BXVI or Francis? "the indissolubility of marriage has become almost a utopian idea which many public figures seem precisely to contradict. So it is that even the family is gradually breaking up. There are of course many explanations for the problem of the sharp decline in the birth rate, but certainly a decisive role is also played in this by the fact that people want to enjoy life, that they have little confidence in the future and that they feel the family is no longer viable as a lasting community in which future generations may grow up."
  12. BXVI or Francis? "marriage and the family are in crisis. We now live in a culture of the temporary, in which more and more people are simply giving up on marriage as a public commitment. The revolution in mores and morals has often flown the flag of freedom, but in fact it has brought spiritual and material devastation to countless human beings, especially the poorest and most vulnerable."
  13. BXVI or Francis? " I... have realized that we have to follow instead the example of the Lord, who was very open also with the people who were at the margins of Israel at that time. He was a Lord of mercy, too open – according to many of the official authorities – with sinners, welcoming them or allowing himself to be welcomed by them at their dinners, drawing them to himself in his communion. ...Where there is no element of faith, where First Communion would just be a party with a big lunch, nice clothes and nice gifts, then it can't be a sacrament of the faith. But, on the other hand, if we can see even a tiny flame of desire for communion in the church, a desire also from these children who want to enter into communion with Jesus, it seems right to me to be rather generous."
  14. BXVI or Francis? "The Church is carried forward by the Saints, who are the very ones who bear this witness. ... today's world stands in great need of witnesses, not so much of teachers but rather of witnesses. It's not so much about speaking, but rather speaking with our whole lives: living consistently, the very consistency of our lives!"
  15. BXVI or Francis? "The courageous and integral appeal to principles is essential and indispensable; yet simply proclaiming the message does not penetrate to the depths of people's hearts, it does not touch their freedom, it does not change their lives. What attracts is, above all, the encounter with believing persons who, through their faith, draw others to the grace of Christ by bearing witness to him."
  16. BXVI or Francis? "the family is knocked and ...the family is debased as... a way of association ... Can everything be called a family? How many families are divided, how many marriages are broken, how much relativism there is in the concept of the Sacrament of Marriage. At present, from a sociological point of view and from the point of view of human values, as well as, in fact, of the Catholic Sacrament, of the Christian Sacrament, there is a crisis of the family, a crisis because it is hit from all sides and left very wounded!"
  17. "Given the reality of cultural diversity, people need not only to accept the existence of the culture of others, but also to aspire to be enriched by it and to offer to it whatever they possess that is good, true and beautiful."
  18. BXVI or Francis? "The most important thing is the first proclamation: Jesus Christ has saved you. And the ministers of the church must be ministers of mercy above all. The confessor, for example, is always in danger of being either too much of a rigorist or too lax. Neither is merciful, because neither of them really takes responsibility for the person. The rigorist washes his hands so that he leaves it to the commandment. The loose minister washes his hands by simply saying, "˜This is not a sin' or something like that. In pastoral ministry we must accompany people, and we must heal their wounds."
  19. Benedict or Francis? "We should not allow our faith to be drained by too many discussions of multiple, minor details, but rather, should always keep our eyes in the first place on the greatness of Christianity. If we let ourselves be drawn into these discussions [of abortion, contraception, etc], the Church is then identified with certain commandments or prohibitions; we give the impression that we are moralists with a few somewhat antiquated convictions, and not even a hint of the true greatness of the faith appears. I therefore consider it essential always to highlight the greatness of our faith - a commitment from which we must not allow such situations to divert us."
  20. Benedict XVI or Francis? "This generation, and many others, have been led to believe that the devil is a myth, a figure, an idea, the idea of evil....But the devil exists and we must fight against him."
  21. "Each of your children was wanted by God....How great a miracle is a child!"
  22. "Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary. There is nothing more beautiful than to be surprised by the Gospel, by the encounter with Christ. There is nothing more beautiful than to know him and to speak to others of our friendship with him."
  23. BXVI or Francis? Which pope has dined with the homeless each year of his pontificate?
  24. BXVI or Francis? While visiting hardened criminals in a prison: "Be sure that I am close to each of you, your families, your children, your young, your old and I carry you all in my heart before God. I have come to tell you simply that God loves you with infinite love, and you are always the same children of God. The only-begotten Son of God, The Lord Jesus, experienced prison, He was subjected to trial before a court and suffered the most cruel death sentence."
  25. BXVI or Francis? In a letter to prisoners: "I include with this letter the gift of a new Missal, that you might discover in the Holy Mass the track of the daily journey with the Lord, who is the efficacious physician of your wounds, the faithful friend of each day, and the necessary nourishment to sustain you in that journey of salvation and liberation that not even prison bars can impede. Dearest friends, be assured that I am close to you and I pray for you, asking the Lord to console you with His peace and His sweet presence. I am close also to your families and to all those who are dear to you. I ask you to tell them that I think of them and that I bless them."

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Quiz topic: Benedict XVI or Francis? can I Tell The Difference?