The Pope has said that there is no Hell and that the souls of the damned are simply annihilated. The Vatican denies that he said it:
Vatican City, Mar 29, 2018 / 08:21 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Thursday the Holy See stated that a reported interview between Pope Francis and an Italian journalist, which claims the Pope denied the existence of hell, should not be considered an accurate depiction of Francis’ words, but the author’s own “reconstruction.”
A recent meeting between Pope Francis and Italian journalist Eugenio Scalfari, 93, was a “private meeting for the occasion of Easter, however without giving him any interview,” the March 29 communique stated.
“What is reported by the author in today’s article is the result of his reconstruction, in which the literal words pronounced by the Pope are not quoted. No quotation of the aforementioned article must therefore be considered as a faithful transcription of the words of the Holy Father.”
Scalfari, a self-proclaimed atheist, is the founder and former editor of Italian leftist newspaper La Repubblica. In an article published on the site March 29, Scalfari claims that Pope Francis told him, “hell doesn’t exist, the disappearance of the souls of sinners exists.”
Go here to read the rest. Who to believe? Well Patrick Henry once noted that “I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience.”
The same thing was reported by the same elderly Italian atheist journalist three years ago. Go here to read about it. The Vatican has often claimed this same journalist routinely misquotes the Pope in his reports of the interviews he has with the Pope. Riddle me this: If the Pope is misquoted, why does he keep coming back for additional interviews? This entire Pontificate has been five years of Lent for faithful Catholics.
That sounds like what they used to call a “non-denial denail”
they didn’t say that he didn’t say it, they just said we didn’t say that he said it. OK, so…. What does the pope believe… Who knows? with Francis anything is possible. Don’t hold your breath for the pope to say that there is a hell and sinners are punished there though, because it is soooooooooo beneath him to respond to petty little things like this.
The ‘Francis is god” crowd will be out in full force blaming the big bad media for misrepresenting him again…..(why does he keep going back to the guy?) but eventually they’ll come around to saying…. Yeah, Francis is right, there is no hell.
It’s the same reporter who had the amazing quotes the last couple of times, and who doesn’t even take notes much less record anything for proper quotes.
Riddle me this: If the Pope is misquoted, why does he keep coming back for additional interviews?
Because he doesn’t give a fig for causing scandal as long as he feels like he is “having a dialog”?
Same way that he blew off the Swiss Guard to go for a spin in a car and Make A Statement about how he’s not above that sort of thing.
Same way he does all the other conspicuous “try to reach out” that incidentally has really obvious risk of harming those who are already faithful Catholics, trying to reach those who don’t care.
It’s still annoying.
If he matches the mental pattern I’ve guestimated for him, he gets a sort of thrill out of inspiring false reports, as a spin on the whole telling lies about you thing.
Pope Francis: There is no Hell.
Dogma, Doctrine & Sacred Tradition: There is no Pope Francis.
Hell is better than not having ever been…annihilation. Only God can annihilate which God chooses not to do, that is, to contradict Himself. Another faint but subversive means to destroy God.
God made all things and keeps them in existence…outside of time.
Sister Lucy and Francesco and Jacinta would beg to disagree with him, but I don’t think he really cares.
“If the Pope is misquoted, why does he keep coming back for additional interviews?”
Or
Why don’t they deny he doesn’t belives in Hell? Because they can’t and everyone knows it.
There is a good article on this with all the supposed “misquotes” over the five years on National Review Online: see “Pope Francis & Hell: Papal Controversies Grow Tedious” at
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/pope-francis-hell-comments-papal-controversies-grow-tedious/
The Vatican, read closely its response, does not deny anything of the sort.
It claims a “reconstruction” of the conversation on the part of Mr. Scalfari.
It offers nothing else. The pope does not issue a direct rebuttal. The problem is not Scalfari, we all know he does not take notes. The pope knows this also.
The bishop of Rome is undisciplined and ill suited for the office he holds. Sadly, I do not trust him an inch.
This Lent of a pontificate shows no signs of ending, unlike the Lent that ended today.
why does he keep coming back for additional interviews?
To get his preferred message out while maintaining plausible deniability. Not sure whom he thinks he is fooling.