ON TUESDAY,two distinguished, elderly gentlemen who live in Rome (one aged 81, and the other 93) had a warm meeting at the younger one’s residence. It was the latest in a series of pleasant and stimulating conversations they have enjoyed in recent years. A few days later they seemed to be having a public misunderstanding approximately hell,or rather approximately what precisely one of them had said on that subject.
The interlocutors were Pope Francis and Eugenio Scalfari, the founder of the left-wing newspaper La Repubblica who is an avowed non-believer. In keeping with Mr Scalfari’s well-established style, and he avoided using notebooks or tape-recorders during his papal chat. However on March 29th,he published his own impressions of the meeting, complete with some lengthy direct “quotes” that reflected his memory of what the pontiff had said.
The most controversial bit was an respond the journalist apparently received to his question on the fate of unrepentant sinners. Francis is quoted as saying something like:They are not...
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Source: economist.com