Hell: Pope Francis accused of speaking against traditional Catholic Church teachings

An 'interview' with Pope Francis claims he says Hell does not exist

Just ahead of Easter, Pope Francis has been demeaned and disgraced in the media once again. In an attempt to bring forth more doubters of the Holy Father, news pertaining an "interview" with his longtime atheist friend, Eugenio Scalfari was released to the public.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - A 93-year-old journalist, Scalfari is notorious for not taking notes during his interviews. The lack of notes leads to a lot of misinformation printed. 

 Scalfari claims Pope Francis declared sinners and condemned souls simply "disappear" and there is no Hell. If the pontiff said this, he would be going against the 2,000-year-old Catechism teaching on the eternal existence of all souls and Hell. 

Scalfari says he asked Pope Francis, "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?"

To which he claims the pope responded, "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." (1035)

The controversial interview was published on March 28, 2018 in Italian newspaper La Repubblica. Since news of Pope Francis' alleged claims began erupting in articles all over the internet with links to the Catechism on Hell, the Vatican released a statement denying any of Pope Francis' printed words on the topic.

"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."

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