Pope Francis: ‘There Is No Hell’

Christian universalists have taught that while Hell really exists, no one is going to wind up there. In other words, Christ’s atonement redeems all persons, believers and others as well. Such a belief is considered profoundly in error, even heretical, by evangelicals. It eliminates the necessity of personal faith in Christ’s work on one’s behalf.

But that’s not what we are dealing with as we try to understand what Pope Francis just said. He is reported to have claimed that there is not a literal Hell. If that’s what he believes, it is plainly heretical.

CNS News brings us up to speed:

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.”)

Scalfari 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.”

So, according to the pope, those who are redeemed by Christ enter heaven, and those who are not are annihilated — they simply cease to exist in any form at the time of death. Again, this is not a new teaching, it is simply one that is at profound variance with both Scripture and the historic teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, not to mention those of Protestants as well.

The Catholic News Agency is trying to walk this back, or otherwise to quell some of the outrage Francis’ statement made.

On Thursday the Holy See stated that a reported interview between Pope Francis and an Italian journalist, which claims the Pope denied the existence of hell, should not be considered an accurate depiction of Francis’ words, but the author’s own “reconstruction.”

A recent meeting between Pope Francis and Italian journalist Eugenio Scalfari, 93, was a “private meeting for the occasion of Easter, however without giving him any interview,” the March 29 communique stated.

“What is reported by the author in today’s article is the result of his reconstruction, in which the literal 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.”

There’s a problem with that defense. Given the outrageous statements Pope Francis has already made such as the aforementioned comment that Jesus failed on the cross, it comes as little surprise that he would deny the existence of Hell.

The other problem is that there is a simple way to resolve this that is not being used. All the pope has to do is issue a statement clarifying what he said and believes. If the article was not “a faithful transcription of the words of the Holy Father,” he could clear matters up in a heartbeat.

This is the way heresy works. You begin with a small error and it acts as a wedge to crack apart more fundamental teachings. This is the path that Pope Francis is following. He gives the appearance of a liberal crusader for a socialist world order. That he would take a liberal or even heretical view of essential Christian doctrine, while tragic, is not surprising.

The good news is that even a pope can repent of his errors, regardless of what might be taught. The question is whether he will.

Source: CNS News

Source: Catholic News Agency