‘Who am I to judge?’ Pope Francis had an informal, lighthearted speaking style

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This article was published 21/04/2025 (530 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis, who died on Monday, had an informal, lighthearted speaking style, and sometimes he even created words in a combination of his native Spanish with the Italian that he spoke as pope.

Some of his memorable quotes: 

A simple, initial greeting

“Brothers and sisters, good evening!” — Francis’ first words delivered from the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica after his election as pontiff on March 13, 2013.

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A plea to remember the poor

“When the votes reached two-thirds, there was the usual applause, because the pope had been elected. And he gave me a hug and a kiss and said: ‘Don’t forget the poor!’ And those words came to me: the poor, the poor. Then, right away, thinking of the poor, I thought of Francis of Assisi. Then I thought of all the wars, as the votes were still being counted, till the end. Francis is also the man of peace. That is how the name came into my heart: Francis of Assisi. … How I would like a Church which is poor and for the poor!” — Francis, speaking to journalists on March 16, 2013, recounting how Cardinal Claudio Hummes gave him the idea of choosing the name Francis.

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A plea for mercy

“In these days, I’ve been able to read a book by a cardinal — Cardinal Kasper, a good theologian — about mercy. And this book has done me a lot of good, though don’t think I’m just doing publicity for my cardinals’ books! It’s not like that. But it’s done me so much good. Cardinal Kasper said that feeling ‘mercy,’ this word changes everything. It’s the best thing we can feel: It changes the world. A bit of mercy makes the world less cold and more just.” — Francis’ First Angelus prayer from his studio window, March 17, 2013. ___

A greeting for Benedict

“We are brothers.” — Francis, upon meeting Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI for the first time after the election, at the papal summer residence in Castel Gandolfo, March 23, 2013. ___

A welcoming phrase

“Who am I to judge?” — Francis, responding to a question about a purportedly gay priest, in a comment that set the tone for a papacy more welcoming to LGBTQ+ Catholics, July 28, 2013. ___

A greeting for the patriarch

“We are brothers.” — Francis, to Patriarch Kirill during the first-ever papal meeting with the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, in the Havana airport, Feb. 13, 2016. ___

A message on the sacraments

“In certain cases, this can include the help of the sacraments. Hence, ‘I want to remind priests that the confessional must not be a torture chamber, but rather an encounter with the Lord’s mercy.’ I would also point out that the Eucharist ‘is not a prize for the perfect, but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak.’” — Footnote 351 in encyclical “Amoris Laetitia” (“The Joy of Love”), referencing Francis’ writings about access to the Eucharist, April 8, 2016. ___

An outreach to Islam

“The meeting is the message.” — Francis, upon meeting Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, the grand imam of Al-Azhar, the prestigious Sunni Muslim center of learning, after a long freeze in relations, May 23, 2016. 

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On criticism

“It’s an honor if the Americans attack me.” — Francis’ quip to French journalist-author Nicholas Seneze, referring to U.S. conservative criticism, aboard the papal plane about Seneze’s book “How America Wants to Change the Pope,” Sept. 4, 2019.

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On the pandemic

“We have realized that we are on the same boat, all of us fragile and disoriented, but at the same time, important and needed, all of us called to row together, each of us in need of comforting the other.” — Francis, praying for an end to the coronavirus pandemic in St. Peter’s Square, March 27, 2020.

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On Indigenous people

“I am sorry. I ask forgiveness, in particular, for the ways in which many members of the church and of religious communities cooperated, not least through their indifference, in projects of cultural destruction and forced assimilation promoted by the governments of that time, which culminated in the system of residential schools.” — Francis, apologizing for abuses of Indigenous peoples in Canada’s residential schools, at the site of a former school in Maskwacis, Alberta, July 25, 2022.

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On Argentina

“I don’t know if you’re familiar with this theological-cultural history, that the guardian angels of some countries got mad with God and told him: ‘Father, you were unfair to us … you gave each of our countries a wealth: cattle, agriculture, mining. And to the Argentines you gave them everything. Everything! They have all the wealth.’ And it is said that God thought a little. ‘But to balance it out, I gave Argentina Argentines.’” — Francis, in an interview with The Associated Press, Jan. 24, 2023.

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On homosexuality

“Being homosexual is not a crime.”— Francis, in an interview with The Associated Press, referring to countries that criminalize homosexuality, Jan. 24, 2023.