Pope Benedict's Anniversary

Today is Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s 65^th anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood. He’s my pope—the one in the chair when I became Catholic. I’m constantly finding more and more of his brilliant writings. So in honor of his Sapphire Anniversary, here are some of my favorite quotes by my German shepherd.

"Art is elemental. Reason alone as it's expressed in the sciences can't be man's complete answer to reality, and it can't express everything that man can, wants to, and has to express. I think God built this into man. Art along with science is the highest gift God has given him."

"Each of us is willed. Each of us is loved. Each of us is necessary."

"If an individual is to accept himself, someone must say to him: 'It is good that you exist' - must say it, not with words, but with that act of the entire being that we call love."

"Dear friends, may no adversity paralyze you. Be afraid neither of the world, nor of the future, nor of your weakness. The Lord has allowed you to live in this moment of history so that, by your faith, His name will continue to resound throughout the world."

"I have a mustard seed, and I am not afraid to use it."

"The world promises you comfort, but you were not made for comfort. You were made for greatness."

"In the course of my intellectual life I experienced very acutely the problem of whether it isn't actually presumptuous to say that we can know the truth - in the face of all our limitations. I also asked myself to what extent it might not be better to suppress this category. In pursuing this question, however, I was able to observe and also to grasp that relinquishing truth doesn't solve anything but, on the contrary, leads to the tyranny of caprice. In that case, the only thing that can remain is really what we decide on and can replace at will. Man is degraded if he can't know truth, if everything, in the final analysis, is just the product of an individual or collective decision. In this way it became clear to me how important it is that we don't lose the concept of truth, in spite of the menaces and perils that it doubtless carries with it. It has to remain as a central category. As a demand on us that doesn't give us rights but requires, on the contrary, our humility and our obedience and can lead us to the common path."