It is been accepted Christian doctrine since the founding of the church, but Pope Francis appears this morning to have have Hell.
In a move that will enrage conservative Catholics, the Pontiff told La Repubblica that the souls of unrepentant sinners were not punished in the afterlife, but simply disappeared.
“Hell doesn’t exist, the disappearance of the souls of sinners exists,” he told Eugenio Scalfari, a 93-year-old atheist philosopher, during a conversation in the Vatican.
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| Pope Francis spitting fire. |
It was the fifth meeting between Pope Francis and Mr Scalfari, the founder of one of Italy’s leading newspapers. Mr Scalfari has retired as editor of the Rome daily, but continues as one of its leading writers.
The previous conversations between the two men have also caused controversy and prompted the Vatican to issue official clarifications. Mr Scalfari says he reconstructs the conversations from memory, without taking notes or using a recorder.
“They are not punished, those who repent obtain the forgiveness of God and go among the ranks of the souls who contemplate him,” Francis said. “But those who do not repent, and therefore cannot be forgiven, disappear.”
During the five years of his pontificate, Francis has emphasised the mercy of God rather than the severity of his judgment, which inspired great works of art by Michelangelo Bosch and the like.
Traditional church teaching says that those who die in a state of mortal sin face eternal punishment by “unquenchable fire” in Hell.
Speaking at a general audience in St Peter’s Square last year, Francis said that judgment was not to be feared because “at the end of our history there is the merciful Jesus”. On another occasion he described heaven, where the just go to be rewarded, as “an immense tent, where God will welcome all mankind”.
Until now the abolition of the place of eternal torment was implicit rather than explicit.
The Times
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