Our Holy Father is a patient man, who, by all estimations, gives people the benefit of the doubt, including journalists. In a reported interview with Italian journalist, Eugenio Scalfari, published in the influential Italian newspaper, La Repubblica, the Holy Father spoke to this 93-year-old reporter, who, by his own admission, does not take notes or record the conversation, about a number of issues. Scalfari is an atheist, but is a great admirer of Pope Francis.

This is not the first interview that His Holiness has granted to Scalfari and it is not the first time that, after the publication of an “interview” with him that the Holy See has had to acknowledge that what was reported was not what the Holy Father actually said. This time involved a question of dogmatic theology, namely, what happens to the soul after death.

According to Scalfari, the pope was commenting on the fate of “bad souls.” “They are not punished,” the pope is reported to have said. “Those who repent obtain God’s forgiveness and take their place among the ranks of those who contemplate him, but those who do not repent and cannot be forgiven disappear. A hell doesn’t exist, the disappearance of sinning souls exists.”

It should be noted that the Holy See stated that the “literal words pronounced by the Pope are not quoted” and that “no quotation of the article should be considered as a faithful transcription of the words of the Holy Father.” However, these alleged words have caused serious doctrinal confusion concerning what it is that the Church believes about hell.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states:

“The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its 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.’ The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs.”

So, yes, the Church teaches that there is a hell. So, too, does Heaven exist. Heaven is a permanent state. Once you are there, living in the Beatific Vision, you are there for eternity, in peaceful union with God.

Hell is a fearful state of existence and we should live our lives in accordance with God’s will so as to avoid hell. To teach otherwise is wrong and to imply that the Holy Father denied the concept of hell is wrong.