“As the family goes, so goes the nation, and so goes the whole world in which we live.”

— Pope John Paul II, Homily at Perth, Australia, 30 November 1986

About Pope John Paul II

1920 – 2005

Polish-born pope who led the Catholic Church from 1978 to 2005.

“Remember the past with gratitude, live the present with enthusiasm and look forward to the future with confidence.”

“A person's rightful due is to be treated as an object of love, not as an object for use.”

“Only the chaste man and the chaste woman are capable of true love.”

“Fathers should be neither seen nor heard. That is the only proper basis for family life.”

“The great advantage of a hotel is that it's a refuge from home life.”

“Home life as we understand it is no more natural to us than a cage is natural to a cockatoo.”

“Not an orphan in the wide world can be so deserted as the child who is an outcast from a living parent's love.”

“Men deal with life as children with their play, / Who first misuse, then cast their toys away.”

“Fiction is to the grown man what play is to the child; it is there that he changes the atmosphere and tenor of his life.”