Vatican spokesman Greg Burke on Thursday issued a now-customary distancing statement, describing the conversation as a “private meeting, without releasing any interview,” and Scalfari’s front-page article on Thursday quoting Francis at length as “the fruit of his own reconstruction,” in which the pope’s words “are not cited textually,” and warning that it “should not be considered as a faithful transcript of the Holy Father’s words.”
This is the fifth time Francis has sat down with Scalfari since the pontiff’s election in 2013, and on those previous occasions, the Vatican has said something similar after Scalfari published a major account of their conversation.
On the existence of Hell, Scalfari described himself asking Francis what happens to the souls of sinners, and specifically, where they are punished. He then quoted the pope as follows:
“They’re not punished. Those who repent obtain forgiveness and enter the ranks of those who contemplate him, but those who don’t repent and can’t be forgiven disappear. A Hell doesn’t exist, what exists is the disappearance of sinning souls.”
For the record, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the official compendium of Catholic teaching, upholds the existence of Hell: