- Pope Benedict: In 1978, we had three popes.
- Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio: Yeah, but they weren't at the same time.
- Pope Benedict: I was making a little joke.
- Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio: A joke?
- Pope Benedict: A German joke. It doesn't have to be funny.
- Pope Francis: We have spent these last years disciplining anyone who disagrees with our line on divorce, on birth control, on being gay. While our planet was being destroyed, while inequality grew like a cancer. We worried whether it was alright to speak the Mass in Latin, whether girls should be allowed to be altar servers. We built walls around us, and all the time, all the time, the real danger was inside. Inside with us.
- Pope Francis: Speaking English is exhausting.
- Pope Benedict: Terrible language - so many exceptions to every rule.
- Cardinal Turkson: The most important qualification for any leader is not wanting to be leader. Plato.
- Pope Benedict: You talk about walls as if they are bad things. A house is built of walls. Strong walls.
- Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio: Ah... Did Jesus build walls? His face is a face of mercy. The bigger the sinner, the warmer the welcome. Mercy is the dynamite that blows down walls.
- Pope Francis: Confession cleans the sinner's soul, it doesn't help the victim. Our whole church is in need of forgiveness. Where is our humility? Sin is a wound, not a stain. It needs to be treated, healed. Forgiveness is not enough.
- Pope Benedict: This is your ego talking. You think you know better.
- Pope Francis: I'm Argentinian. How does an Argentinian kill himself? He climbs to the top of his ego, and jumps off.
- Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio: It's not easy to entrust oneself to God's mercy. I know He has a very special capacity for forgetting our mistakes. God forgets, but I don't.
- Pope Francis: And remind you that truth may be vital, but without love, it is unbearable. Caritas in veritate.
- Pope Francis: Where was Christ in all this? Was he taking tea in the presidential palace? Or was he being tortured in prisons, with Yorio and Jalics?
- Pope Benedict: When you were leader of the Jesuits in Argentina, you had all the books on Marxism removed from the library.
- Pope Francis: And I made seminarians wear cassocks all day, even when they were working in the vegetable garden. And I called civil marriage for homosexuals the Devil's plan.
- Pope Benedict: You were not unlike me.
- Pope Francis: I changed.
- Pope Benedict: No, you compromised!
- Pope Francis: No, I changed! It's a different thing.
- Pope Francis: [addressing a crowd in Villa 21 Buenos Aires] Once, a young man was walking in the woods. His name was Francesco Bernardone. Suddenly, he found a chapel - ruined, with the walls destroyed. He stepped inside. A crucifix was still there, where the altar had been. Francesco felt captivated. The crucifix spoke to him and said, 'Francesco, repair my Church.' Francesco was a practical man. He went up to the quarry on Mount Subasio, cut stones, carted them down the mountain, and repaired the broken walls. Any journey, no matter how long, has to start somewhere. Any journey, no matter how glorious, can start with a mistake. So, when you feel lost, don't worry. God will not give up.
- Pope Benedict: A Church that marries the spirit of the age...
- Pope Francis: Yes, ..will be widowed in the next.
- Pope Francis: We are seeing a globalization of indifference. There is a culture of conflict, which makes us think only of ourselves. Makes us live in soap bubbles which, however lovely, are also insubstantial. We've become used to the suffering of others. It doesn't affect me. No one in our world feels responsible. Who is responsible for the blood of our brothers and sisters? The refugees washed up on the shores of the Mediterranean? I don't have anything to do with it.Must be someone else. Certainly, not me. When no one is to blame everyone is to blame.
- Pope Benedict: We all suffer from spiritual pride. We all do. You must remember that, uh..you are not God. In God, we move, and live, and have our being. We live in God, but we are not of it. You're only human.
- Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio: You know the story, the... the two seminarians who... who liked to smoke?
- Pope Benedict: No. They should resist the temp...
- Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio: Well, yeah, yeah. So, the first one, he goes to his spiritual director, and he says, "Father, is it permitted to smoke while praying?" And the director says, "No. No, of course not."
- Pope Benedict: Of course not. No, it's...
- Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio: No, no. So... So, the second one, he was a Jesuit. He says to his friend, "Brother, you're just asking the wrong question."
- Pope Benedict: Ah.
- Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio: So, he goes to the director, then he says, "Father, is it permitted to pray while smoking?"
- Pope Benedict: Yeah. Pray and smoke at the same ti... Ah-haha haha!
- Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio: Ah?
- Pope Benedict: It's a joke. It's a silly joke. Pray and smoke at the same time. It's impossible. Ah, I can never remember jokes.
- Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio: Remembering jokes is an essential part of Jesuit training.
- Pope Benedict: My doctor gave it to me. He said,You are in good shape for 86 but very bad shape for a human being. I believe this was a joke.
- Pope Benedict: [playing the piano] You know, the, um... this album was recorded in a famous studio in London. I was told, uh, I should be very honored because the Beatles had been there. Do you know the Beatles?
- Pope Francis: Yes, I know who they are.
- Pope Benedict: Of course you do.
- Pope Francis: 'Eleanor Rigby!'
- Pope Benedict: Who?
- Pope Francis: 'Eleanor Rigby.'
- Pope Benedict: I don't know her.
- Pope Benedict: You know, there's a saying, uh, God always corrects one pope by presenting the world with another pope. I should... I'd like to see my correction.
- Pope Benedict: It is our weakness that calls forth the grace of God. You show your weakness, He gives us strength.
- Pope Francis: Um, I am trying to get the Wi-Fi in here. You know how it works?
- Swiss Guard: The Wi-Fi?
- Pope Francis: S, si. I'm trying to make a booking, and apparently, the only way it can be done is online. Can you help me at all?
- Swiss Guard: Of course, Holy Father...
- Pope Benedict: All dictatorships take away our freedom to choose. We both know that. Or reveal our own weaknesses.
- Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio: I'd sort out the bank
- Cardinal Ratzinger: Yeah, good luck with that.
- Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio: Yeah, well the banks almost destroyed my country.
- Cardinal Ratzinger: Yeah.
- Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio: You know they beg for deregulation, like tigers begging to be let out of a cage.
- Cardinal Ratzinger: Yeah
- Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio: They devour everything in sight.
- Pope Benedict: I cannot feel the presence of God. I do not hear His voice, do you understand me?
- Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio: No. No, you're mistaken. You are mistaken.
- Pope Benedict: I believe in God! I pray to God! Silence!
- Pope Benedict: You're the right person. I'm going to resign. This marble is cold.
- Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio: The right person for what?
- Pope Benedict: To tell.
- Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio: To tell what?
- Pope Benedict: What I just said. I'm going to resign.
- Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio: Resign from what?
- Pope Benedict: The Papacy. The Chair of St. Peter. The Bishopric of Rome. I'm going to renounce all of them.
- Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio: But you can't. You... you wouldn't be the Pope anymore.
- Pope Benedict: No.
- Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio: Popes can't resign!
- Pope Francis: Why do the Presidents of America and Russia and China come to you? Because... unlike them, your authority comes from the fact that you will suffer and die in the job, a martyr to justice and truth. For this, all people come. Forgive me, but...
- Pope Francis: 'But'?
- Pope Francis: Christ did not come down from the cross.