Our Favorite Quotes on Marriage from the Church

by CAPP-USA

These marriage quotes from the Church demonstrate how important the institution is to humanity.

Our favorite marriage quotes from the Catholic Church.

Our Top Quotes About Marriage

Marriage is important! So important even these don’t fully capture the profound value of this institution created by God.

“[M]arriage and the family constitute one of the most precious of human values”. (Pope St. John Paul II, 1)
“Marriage” is an “intimate partnership of…life and love…established by the Creator and…rooted in the conjugal covenant of irrevocable personal consent.” (Gaudium et Spes, 48)
“Marriage…transcends the feelings and momentary needs of the couple…it is not born ‘of loving sentiment, ephemeral by definition, but from the depth of the obligation assumed by the spouses who accept to enter a total communion of life‘.” (Pope Francis, 66)
“[T]he unity of marriage will radiate from the equal personal dignity of wife and husband, a dignity acknowledged by mutual and total love.” (Gaudium et Spes, 49)
“The reception and transmission of divine love are realized in the mutual commitment of the spouses”. (Pope Benedict XVI)
Marriage “is a marvelous gift, which contains the power of God’s own love: strong, enduring, faithful, ready to start over after every failure or moment of weakness.” (Pope Francis, 1)
“Marriage based on exclusive and definitive love becomes the icon of the relationship between God and his people and vice versa.” (Pope Benedict XVI, 11)
“[H]uman society at large springs from marriage“. (Pope Leo XIII, 17)
It is “a social and even economic necessity…to hold up to future generations the beauty of marriage and the family, and the fact that these institutions correspond to the deepest needs and dignity of the person.” (Pope Benedict XVI, 44)
Marriage is “the mutual gift of self by husband and wife [which] creates an environment in which children can be born and develop their potentialities, become aware of their dignity and prepare to face their unique and individual destiny.” (Pope St. John Paul II, 39)

“[M]arriage and the family constitute one of the most precious of human values”. (Pope St. John Paul II, 1)

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Three circles containing symbols of the three principles of catholic social teaching: human dignity, subsidiarity, and solidarity.

Three Key Principles

Catholic social teaching is built on three foundational principles - Human Dignity, Solidarity and Subsidiarity. Human Dignity, embodied in a correct understanding of the human person, is the greatest. The others flow from it. Good governments and good economic systems find ways of fostering the three principles.

Human Dignity

This means a correct understanding of the human person and of each person’s unique value. All Catholic social teaching flows from this: the inherent dignity of every person that comes from being made in God’s image.

Solidarity

Solidarity is not “a feeling of vague compassion or shallow distress at the misfortunes of others. It is a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good”. (Pope St. John Paul II, 38) Love of God and love of neighbor are, in fact, linked and form one, single commandment.

Subsidiarity

Subsidiarity “is a fundamental principle of social philosophy, fixed and unchangeable, that one should not withdraw from individuals and commit to the community what they can accomplish by their own enterprise and industry. So, too, it is an injustice and at the same time a grave evil and a disturbance of right order to transfer to the larger and higher collectivity functions which can be performed and provided for by the lesser and subordinate bodies”. (Pope Pius XI)

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