Oh m'gosh! Current giant headline going out to the masses who read the Drudge Report: POPE DECLARES NO HELL? Pope Francis: 'There Is No Hell' By Michael W. Chapman | March 29, 2018 | 10:45 AM EDT Pope Francis. (YouTube) In another interview with his longtime atheist friend, Eugenio Scalfari, Pope Francis claims that Hell does not exist and that condemned souls just "disappear." This is a denial of the 2,000-year-old teaching of the Catholic Church about the reality of Hell and the eternal existence of the soul. The interview between Scalfari and the Pope was published March 28, 2018 in La Repubblica. The relevant section on Hell was translated by the highly respected web log, Rorate Caeli. The interview is headlined, "The Pope: It is an honor to be called revolutionary." (Il Papa: “È un onore essere chiamato rivoluzionario.") Scalfri says to the Pope, "Your Holiness, in our previous meeting you told me that our species will disappear in a certain moment and that God, still out of his creative force, will create new species. You have never spoken to me about the souls who died in sin and will go to hell to suffer it for eternity. You have however spoken to me of good souls, admitted to the contemplation of God. But what about bad souls? Where are they punished?" Pope Francis says, "They are not punished, those who repent obtain the forgiveness of God and enter the rank of souls who contemplate him, but those who do not repent and cannot therefore be forgiven disappear. There is no hell, there is the disappearance of sinful souls." The Catechism of the Catholic Church states: "The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity. Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell, where they suffer the punishments of hell, 'eternal fire.' The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs." (1035) The Catechism further states, "The affirmations of Sacred Scripture and the teachings of the Church on the subject of hell are a call to the responsibility incumbent upon man to make use of his freedom in view of his eternal destiny. They are at the same time an urgent call to conversion: 'Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few.' "Since we know neither the day nor the hour, we should follow the advice of the Lord and watch constantly so that, when the single course of our earthly life is completed, we may merit to enter with him into the marriage feast and be numbered among the blessed, and not, like the wicked and slothful servants, be ordered to depart into the eternal fire, into the outer darkness where 'men will weep and gnash their teeth.'" Pope Benedict XVI said in a 2007 sermon, “Jesus came to tell us that he wants us all in Heaven and that Hell, of which so little is said in our time, exists and is eternal for those who close their hearts to his love.” As for the human soul, the Catholic Church teaches that it is eternal, immortalin countless places throughout the Catechism. One instance, "Endowed with 'a spiritual and immortal' soul, the human person is 'the only creature on earth that God has willed for its own sake.' From his conception, he is destined for eternal beatitude." (1703) https://www.cnsnews.com/blog/michael-w-chapman/pope-francis-there-no-hell
Things are degenerating quite quickly now. Interesting timing, just as we enter the most important three days for us Catholics. Go to confession, pray, trust the Lord. Come what may HE WINS IN THE END.
If I can think of one problem in the Church today it is priests idolizing Church law. Boy you almost can't walk into a Church today without the mean, angry priests pointing out Church legalisms to you. I'm not alone in this am I? (Sarcasm off)
Yes, remain in a state of Grace and do not sin just as Our Lady of Revelation warned. Pray the Rosary each day, and daily dedicate our suffering and sacrifices (no matter how small or insignificant) for our Priests, and the sins of others. For the souls in Purgatory with no one to pray for them, those in prison with no one to pray or visit them, the sick and afflicted with no one to comfort them, the prisoner held captive, the list goes on and on. Let us all have Charity in our hearts and Pray for God's Mercy. Things are speeding up. The Harvest is growing closer.
I just saw this on Drudge. There is a statement which was just released by the Vatican today regarding this article: * In a statement released on Mar. 29, after Scalfari's report garnered worldwide attention, the Vatican said: "The Holy Father Francis recently received the founder of the newspaper La Repubblica in a private meeting on the occasion of Easter, without however giving him any interviews. What is reported by the author in today’s article [in La Repubblica] is the result of his reconstruction, in which the textual 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." God Bless!
Thank you Bernadette, I am sorry to say this to the Vatican, but this response is insufficient. All this statement says is that the words Scalfari used were not exact quotes of the Pope. It does not deny the claim he makes that the Pope denied the existence of Hell or eternal punishment, both of which you must believe to be a Catholic. If the Pope did not say these things (and I sincerely hope he did not) then the Vatican should come out and say this is a pure fabrication of Scalfari. One which has no basis in truth. If an article was written about Pope Benedict or any other Pope saying that he stated there was no Hell, I would think that a statement would be issued immediately saying that the Pope adheres to all Catholic Teaching and that includes the reality of Hell and the eternal punishment of the damned. It would only be proper to do so. The Vatican's reply does not deny that Pope Francis said this to Scalfari. It only states that Scalfari was not directly quoting the Pope. If this is a Jesuit answer, it is not even a very good one.
if Scalfari changes the Pope's words, why does he insist on meeting with this journalist and granting interviews?
Another take.....seeming to acknowledge at least the error of repeating the same kind of mistake of granting more interviews to the one who caused havoc previously....um, that definition of insanity for instance?? Or....just scattering more seeds into the wind? Rod Dreher Did Pope Francis Really Deny Hell? So says Eugenio Scalfari, the elderly left-wing journalist who famously refuses to take notes in his interviews. Scalfari, who is 93, just had another meeting with Francis, and quotes this exchange in his Repubblica interview: Your Holiness, in our previous meeting you told me that our species will disappear in a certain moment and that God, still out of his creative force, will create new species. You have never spoken to me about the souls who died in sin and will go to hell to suffer it for eternity. You have however spoken to me of good souls, admitted to the contemplation of God. But what about bad souls? Where are they punished? “They are not punished, those who repent obtain the forgiveness of God and enter the rank of souls who contemplate him, but those who do not repent and cannot therefore be forgiven disappear. There is no hell, there is the disappearance of sinful souls.” My guess, in charity, and given that Francis has in the past spoken of the reality of the demonic, is that this is made up by the atheist Scalfari. But I could be wrong. Who knows with Francis? The bizarre — truly bizarre — thing is that Francis continues to grant Scalfari interviews (this is his fifth) even though Scalfari doesn’t take notes, and the results of the interviews rattle the Vatican, over the things Scalfari quotes Francis as saying. It is not the Pope’s fault if he is misquoted. It is very much the Pope’s fault if he continues to meet with a journalist who misquotes him, and he continues to allow that journalist to interview him without recording the conversation. Any confusion that results is entirely Francis’s fault. http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/did-pope-francis-really-deny-hell/
You're exactly right on this. The Vatican's reply does not refute or correct Scalfari's claim. The response is clumsy wordsmithing, at best. The Truth is not as complicated as our church hierarchy is making it seem.
But clever enough to transmit it through a third party who is also, conveniently, an atheist. A slippery customer, this pope.
Right you are P4P. Let your yes be yes and your no be no. Anything else(dialoguing and accommodating and walking with and discerning obfuscating and confusing etc) might be of the evil one!
