If there’s one thing Catholics love, it’s babies. Our faith teaches that children are “the supreme gift of marriage.” Our wedding vows even include this question:
Are you prepared to accept children lovingly from God and to bring them up according to the law of Christ and his Church?
Our Church sees babies and children as a great good, and this viewpoint starts with the pope himself. A number of popes and saints have written about the blessing that children are.
Pope Francis is no exception. Like other Church leaders, he’s said numerous times that babies are an enormous gift from God. Here are 5 quotations from Pope Francis that summarize why he loves babies.
1God came to us as a baby
“God does not reveal himself in strength or power, but in the weakness and fragility of a newborn babe.”
2A baby’s cry is God’s voice
“Babies cry, make noise, go here and there. But it annoys me when a baby cries in church and there are those who say he needs to go out. The cry of a baby is God’s voice: never drive them away from the church!”
3A baby is a sign of God’s love
“To be sons and daughters is the fundamental condition for knowing God’s love, which is the ultimate source of this authentic miracle. In the soul of every child, although vulnerable, God places the seal of this love, which is the basis of his or her personal dignity, a dignity that nothing and no one can destroy.”
4Babies are our future
“A population that does not take care of the elderly and of children and the young has no future, because it abuses both its memory and its promise.”
5Every baby is a gift from God
“I want to say to every woman expecting a child: you are God’s awesome instrument to welcome and offer new life to the world. Every child that arrives is God’s gift. Every baby, in every case, and in whatever situation is to be welcomed.”
And today we celebrate...