In his own words

Brothers and sisters, do not be afraid to welcome Christ and accept his power ... Open wide the doors for Christ. To his saving power open the boundaries of states, economic and political systems, the vast fields of culture, civilisation and development.

Mass homily during installation as Pope, October 22, 1978.

Physical condition or advancing of age are not obstacles to a perfect life. God does not look at external things but at the soul.

83rd birthday, 2003.

If I want to know anything about my health, I have to read the newspapers.

Joking with reporters in 1998 aboard a flight to Cuba.

I’m all in one piece. I’m not dead yet.

His first public audience after dislocating his shoulder in 1993.

You have to admire my loyalty.

Joking to medical staff at Rome’s Gemelli hospital, where he was admitted in 1994 for the sixth time in his pontificate to repair a broken thigh bone.

The Pope cannot remain a prisoner of the Vatican. I want to go to everybody ... from the nomads of the steppes to the monks and nuns in their convents ... I want to cross the threshold of every home.

Speaking to reporters early in his reign.

Young people of Ireland, I love you.

In Galway during his 1979 visit to Ireland.

Violence never again! War never again! Terrorism never again! In the name of God, may every religion bring upon the earth justice and peace, forgiveness and life. Love.

Addressing a special peace meeting in Assisi, Italy, in 2002, after the September 11 attacks against the United States.

Things really have to change here.

Delivering a public lecture on inequality to a stony faced President Jean-Claude Duvalier in Haiti during a trip there in 1983.

God once said ‘Do not kill’. No human group, Mafia or whatever, can trample on this most sacred law of God.

Denouncing the Mafia during a trip to Sicily in 1993.

Christians and Muslims - generally we have understood each other badly. Sometimes in the past we have opposed each other and even exhausted ourselves in polemics and wars. I believe God is calling us today to change our old habits.

During a visit to Casablanca, Morocco, in 1985.

You are our dearly beloved brothers, and in a certain way it could be said that you are our elder brother.

Addressing Jews during his historic visit to Rome’s synagogue in 1986.

He was never a Christian and he never pretended to be a Christian, but I learned a lot from him. Speaking of Mahatma Gandhi during a visit to India in 1986. To this day, Auschwitz does not cease to admonish, reminding us that anti-Semitism is a great sin against humanity.

Speaking of the Nazi death camp in his 1994 book “Crossing the Threshold of Hope”.

It is not possible for us to avoid all criticism nor is it possible for us to please everyone.

During a 1979 trip to the US.

On my knees I beg you to turn away from the paths of violence and return to the ways of peace. You may claim to seek justice. I too believe in justice and seek justice. But violence only delays the day of justice. Violence destroys the work of justice.

Drogheda, September 29, 1979.

Never lose your trust, do not be defeated, do not be discouraged, do not cut yourselves off from the roots from which we had our origins.

Farewell mass, Krakow, Poland, June 10, 1979.

It is sometimes claimed that dissent from the magisterium (Church teaching) is totally compatible with being a ‘good Catholic’ and poses no obstacle to the reception of the sacraments. This is a grave error.

Speech to US bishops in Los Angeles, September 16, 1987.

War is an adventure without return.

On eve of Gulf War I, 1990.

A demonstration of readiness on your part cannot fail to bring you honour before your beloved country, the region and the whole world. In these dramatic hours, I pray God will enlighten you and grant you the strength to make a generous gesture that will avoid war.

Letter to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in January 1991 urging peaceful end to Kuwait crisis.

What human institution, what parliament, has the right to legalise the killing of an innocent and defenceless human being? What parliament has the right to say ‘you are free to kill’, or even ‘killing is in order’, where the greatest efforts should be made to protect and help life in the first place?”

Mass at Radom, Poland, June 4, 1991.

The Church “has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the church’s faithful.

Letter to bishops, May 30, 1994.

I remember, above all, the Wadowice elementary school, where at least a fourth of the pupils in my class were Jewish. I should mention my friendship at school with one of them, Jerzy Kluger - a friendship that has lasted from my school days to the present. Both religious groups, Catholics and Jews, were united, I presume, by the awareness that they prayed to the same God.

From his book Crossing the Threshold of Hope, published October 19, 1994.

“I hate to go”

His last words in Poland before leaving for Rome on at the end of his last trip home on August 19, 2002.