Fault found with Italian journalist’s ‘reconstruction’ of Francis interview Vatican refutes Pope’s ‘no hell’ comment

Vatican city, March 31: The existence of Hell, where unrepentant sinners are believed to reach when they die, was temporarily doubted on earth when the Pope reportedly denied its existence.

However, the Vatican worked to set the record straight on whether Pope Francis denied the existence of hell in an interview with a well-known Italian journalist.

The controversy started when 93-year-old journalist Eugenio Scalfari, the founder of La Repubblica newspaper, published a report that he asked Francis where “bad souls” end up going, USA Today reported. Francis’ reply, according to the journalist, was that those who repent could be forgiven but those who do not, “disappear.”

The article, which ran on March 29, reported that Francis said “hell does not exist.” “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,” Francis is quoted as saying. “There is no hell, there is the disappearance of sinful souls.”

The Vatican said the story was the result of the reporter’s “reconstruction.” “What is reported by the author is the result of his reconstruction, in which literal words pronounced by the Pope are not quoted,” the Vatican said. “No quotation of the aforementioned article must therefore be considered as a faithful transcription of the words of the Holy Father.”

The Catholic News Agency (CNA) reported that Scalfari has “misrepresented” the Pope in the past. The agency reported that Scalfari “also falsely reported that Pope Francis had made comments denying the existence of hell in 2015.”

According to Catholic Church teachings, there is a hell and it is for 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.’,” CNA said.

— Agencies