[grania]

Does anyone have the text in Italian, or whatever language the pretender spoke in? Let everyone have at the original statement and decide what he actually said. One thing I’m pretty sure he didn’t say: “hell is real”.

[Mrs. Don-o]

It was Eugenio Scalfari, the 93-year-old founder of La Repubblica. He proudly boasts that he neither makes recordings nor takes notes, but instead tries to reconstruct what was said from memory. He puts long sections in quotation marks even if none of it was said by his interviewee.

Pope Francis talks more about hell and devils than any pope in my lifetime. A remember him giving an address fairly recently in which he said that members of the mafia should change their lives, “while there is still time, so that you do not end up in hell. That is what awaits you if you continue on this path.” So, there's that.

BUT...I also wonder why Pope Francis keeps coming back to this guy ---- this is the 5th time he was interviewed by Scalfari ---- unless he just really, really likes churning things up and sowing confusion (His motto: "Hagan lio" --- "Make a mess".) This seemingly habitual double-tongued, double-dealing communication style Pope Francis favors is not godly. Not in the least.

[MichaelCorleone]

“Does anyone have the text in Italian, or whatever language the pretender spoke in? Let everyone have at the original statement and decide what he actually said.”

Best suggestion that’s been made since this whole thing started.

[Mrs. Don-o]

I mentioned that Eugenio Scalfari admits proudly that he makes no recordings and takes no notes. So no, there's no "record," there's nothing in writing about what Pope Francis said to Scalfari about hell.

In 2014, Pope Francis told the Sicilian Mafia, “Convert! There is still time, so that you don’t end up in hell. That is what awaits you if you continue on this path. You had a father and a mother: think of them. Cry a little and convert.”

In his Message for Lent in 2016, he made it clear that hell is not just for mafiosos:

“The danger always remains that by a constant refusal to open the doors of their hearts to Christ who knocks on them in the poor, the proud, rich and powerful will end up condemning themselves and plunging into the eternal abyss of solitude which is hell.”

That leaves unanswered why he keeps talking, talking, talking to that journalistic charlatan, Scalfari. This is the 5th time in 5 years that the Vatican Press Office has had to come behind the parade with a pooper-scooper "explaining" or "clarifying" or "denying" something that Pope Francis said to Scalfari.

It seems Pope Francis rather enjoys sowing contradiction and confusion, refusing over and over to clear up key points with a couple simple declarative sentences.

There is no reason people should respect or defend this. It is indefensible.