Pope Francis --- in a repeated, flagrant charade of plausible deniability --- always disguises his responsibility for such statements by hinting that he "quite possibly didn't say that." It's totally dishonest.
In this case, it was in a "private" conversation with Eugenio Scalfari, a 95-year-old atheist leftist newspaper editor, to whom he has given FIVE interviews even though he knows that Scalfari neither records them nor even takes notes. Scalfari simply "transcribes" what he "recalls" about the interview, and then publishes it.
This gives Benedict the crooked opportunity to claim that he kinda said that, but kinda didn't. In the subsequent official press release from the Vatican:
"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 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."
So: this was not an interview (!) and Scalfari reconstructed the conversation from memory (which we already knew). But at no point does the Vatican Press Office explicitly deny that the Pope said that Hell doesn’t exist.
Since this is the FIFTH time Pope Francis has pulled off this exact same stunt --- saying a lot of heretical gibberish to Scalfari, and then issuing a denial that actually denies nothing --- you can only conclude that this is the deliberate guerrilla-style demolition of doctrine under no auspices and no flag.
Catholics are totally disgusted.
I've heard there's a conference coming up in Rome in just 2 weeks to discuss the conditions under which a pope could be deposed. It was originally billed as an abstract theological discussion about a hypothetical situation, but I imagine it could be a great deal more pointed now.
If you have any charity in your heart, pray for this disastrous pope to be deposed.
“always disguises his responsibility for such statements by hinting that he “quite possibly didn’t say that.”
—
It’s always “mistranslated”. Apparently there is no one within the Vatican who is fluent in English.
“If you have any charity in your heart, pray for this disastrous pope to be deposed.”
My prayers include your wish. The Catholic Church doesn’t need the repeated black eyes this fool gives it. It’s time to be watching for the color of the smoke coming from a certain chimney.
Sorry; but he's YOUR albatross.
You folks need to do the removin', since y'all voted him into office.
Is there some kind of test that a MAN should take to see how well he's been catechized?
Were there no red flags from his past?
Heck; even Obama was a community organizer!