The Vatican on Thursday rebuked a well-known Italian journalist who quoted Pope Francis as saying hell does not exist.
The
Vatican issued a statement after the comments spread on social media,
saying they did not properly reflect what the pope had said.
Eugenio
Scalfari, 93, an avowed atheist who has struck up an intellectual
friendship with Francis, met the pope recently and wrote up a long story
that included a question-and-answer section at the end.
The
Vatican said the pope did not grant him an interview and the article
"was the fruit of his reconstruction" not a "faithful transcription of
the Holy Father's words".
Scalfari,
the founder of Italy's La Repubblica newspaper, has prided himself on
not taking notes and not using tape recorders during his encounters with
leaders and later reconstructing the meetings to create lengthy
articles.
According
to Scalfari's article in Thursday's La Repubblica, he asked the pope
where "bad souls" go and where they are punished. Scalfari quoted the
pope as saying:
"They
are not punished. Those who repent obtain God's forgiveness and take
their place among the ranks of those who contemplate him, but those who
do not repent and cannot be forgiven disappear. A Hell doesn't exist,
the disappearance of sinning souls exists."
The
universal catechism of the Catholic Church says "The teaching of the
Catholic Church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity." It
speaks of "eternal fire" and adds that "the chief punishment of hell is
eternal separation from God".
It was
at least the third time the Vatican has issued statements distancing
itself from Scalfari's articles about the pope, including one in 2014 in
which the journalist said the pontiff had abolished sin.
Reuters
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