“Pope” Francis Doublespeak: Denial of Hell

By Rev. Fr. Benedict Hughes, CMRI

This article was originally published in The Reign of Mary, Issue No. 168, Spring 2018.

In 1870 an American named Charles Taze Russell joined a small group of like-minded Protestants to form a Bible study group in Pittsburgh. After a Congregational boyhood and temporary loss of faith, Russell began to seriously study the Bible, but one thing continuously bothered him — the thought of hell. He found it difficult to get around the frequent mention of hell and eternal fire in the Scriptures, so he originated the idea that the word “hell” in the Bible is actually an incorrect translation of the Hebrew word sheol, which really should be translated as “grave.” Problem solved. The departed don’t fall into hell — they merely go down into the grave.

Russell’s followers eventually became known as Jehovah’s Witnesses, under the leadership of one Joseph “Judge” Rutherford, who succeeded Russell as leader of the cult. According to Rutherford, there is no such thing as hell. Rather, Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that at their judgment the wicked will be annihilated.

The fear of hell is indeed a frightening prospect, and has led many souls to abandon sin and convert to a truly Christian life, for “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Honest readers of Holy Scripture must admit that when Our Lord said of the wicked: “these will go into everlasting punishment” (Matt. 25:46), these words cannot be construed as anything other than what they clearly say. There is no annihilation of the wicked. In fact, there are numerous quotations in the Bible that refer to the wicked burning in “unquenchable fire.” The fear of hell is a good thing indeed, but many heretics down through the centuries have sought to redefine or explain revelation in such a way as to eliminate the truth of an everlasting hell.

Francis Also Denies Hell

One is not surprised to find heretics teaching the annihilation of the souls of the wicked. What is surprising, however, is to hear a man who not only claims to be a Catholic, but even passes himself off as the visible head of the Church, the Vicar of Christ on earth, denying the existence of hell!

According to the Italian paper La Repubblica (the only one Francis says he actually reads), Francis gave an interview to his atheist friend Eugenio Scalfari shortly before Easter Sunday. Scalfari asked Francis what will happen to the souls of the wicked who die in sin: “Where are they punished?” Francis replied: “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” (https://novusordowatch.org/2018/03/francis-there-is-no-hell/).

Such blatant heresy is shocking. We will not take the time here to mention the fact that the existence of hell has been frequently defined as a dogma of the faith. Anyone who rejects this dogma is a heretic. What is interesting is to read how the Vatican Press Office tried to wiggle out of this one. It simply released a statement saying that we cannot be certain of what Francis said in the interview because there was no recording nor transcript of the actual words Francis spoke. In other words, they claim that Scalfari reconstructed the conversation from memory, and we can’t trust the memory of a 94-year old man.

One interesting fact about the various denials of such an outrageous statement is that Francis himself has not denied that he said it. Nor has he made a public statement to reassure Catholics that he does, in fact, believe in hell. But in addition to his heretical views, there is another take-away from this incident: Why does he do it?

The Modernist Tactic of Double-speak

This is not the first time Francis has made outrageous statements. Such statements are too numerous for us to narrate all of them, but for example’s sake, I would like to cite one more statement regarding hell, which occurred a couple months ago. Francis was visiting a church in Rome when a young boy named Emmanuele wanted to ask him a question. The poor boy burst into tears, as he explained that his father, who was an atheist, had died. Emmanuele worried that his father was in hell.

Francis hugged the boy and reassured him that his father was “a good man” because he had his children baptized. Francis went on to say: “Your father was a good man; he is in heaven with Him, be sure. God has a father’s heart and, would God ever abandon a non-believing father who baptizes his children?”

One must pity the Rev. Gregory Burke, Vatican press secretary, who must continue to come up with creative ways to justify the unjustifiable. This reminds me of the case several years ago, shortly before Amoris Laetitia came out, when Francis called a woman in Argentina who was divorced and remarried and had been forbidden by her priest to receive the sacraments. Francis told her to simply go to another church and receive the sacraments. The Vatican explanation? “Church teaching is not contained in phone calls.” Note that the Vatican Press Office did not deny what the woman claimed Francis had told her — only that it did not constitute official Church teaching.

Now Francis is an intelligent man, and he certainly knows what he is doing. In fact, this tactic of speaking out of both sides of one’s mouth is a typical ploy of the modernists to sow confusion. As one might expect, this “double-speak” was on display at Vatican II. One example would be the conciliar teaching on Latin in the Mass: “The use of the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rites. But since the use of the mother tongue, whether in the Mass, the administration of the sacraments, or other parts of the liturgy, frequently may be of great advantage to the people, the limits of its employment may be extended” (Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium, #36). So which is it — retention of Latin or the use of the mother tongue (the vernacular)? We all know the outcome. Not only was the entire Novus Ordo translated into the vernacular, but seminarians don’t even study Latin anymore.

Numerous other examples could be given, but perhaps none more striking in contradictory double-speak than that dealing with inter-faith worship. Now worship in common with heretics (communicatio in sacris) has always been condemned by the Church as a grave violation of the First Commandment. Let us see what Vatican II had to say about that in its decree on Ecumenism:

“Today, in many parts of the world, under the inspiring grace of the Holy Spirit, many efforts are being made in prayer, word and action to attain that fullness of unity which Jesus Christ desires. The Sacred Council exhorts all the Catholic faithful to recognize the signs of the times and to take an active and intelligent part in the work of ecumenism” (Unitatis Redintegratio #4).

“In certain special circumstances … it is allowable, indeed desirable that Catholics should join in prayer with their separated brethren. Such prayers in common are certainly an effective means of obtaining the grace of unity, and they are a true expression of the ties which still bind Catholics to their separated brethren … Yet worship in common (communicatio in sacris) is not to be considered as a means to be used indiscriminately for the restoration of Christian unity … There are two main principles governing the practice of such common worship: first, the bearing witness to the unity of the Church, and second, the sharing in the means of grace. Witness to the unity of the Church very generally forbids common worship to Christians, but the grace to be had from it sometimes commends this practice” (Unitatis Redintegratio #8).

So, is the Council saying that Catholics can worship jointly with non-Catholics or not? Well, you decide, because the Council document says both!
Indeed, the modernists are clever. By saying one thing and at the same time denying it, they try to please both sides. The liberals clearly recognize the approval of their cherished heretical ideas, and the conservatives constantly cry: “No, you are misinterpreting the Council!” And all of them, both liberal and conservative, can point to specific quotations from the Council. And both groups remain loyal members of the new Conciliar Church, which has something to offer everyone.

Francis a Faithful Disciple of Vatican II

So, as you can see, Francis is really only following the “spirit of Vatican II” under which he was trained. By making outrageous comments, as he so often does, he signals the heretics to continue to tear down whatever is left of Catholic belief and practice. Yet the conservatives will fall back on the worn-out excuse that Francis hasn’t defined these heresies in a solemn way. Or, they will point to the occasional orthodox statements he makes.

Let us make no mistake about it: hell is very real, and many souls fall into that pit of torment daily. Our Lord Himself said, “Wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat. How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life; and few there are that find it” (Matt. 7:13-14). And St. Paul admonishes us to work out our salvation “in fear and trembling” (Phil. 2:12).

Anyone — supposed pope included — who tries to tell you that the wicked do not perish in hell is himself on the sure path to hell. And you can be sure that for these heretics, there will be no annihilation of their souls!