The Pope’s Hints
In a further media controversy, it has been reported that the Pope has suggested that there is no hell and that the souls of those who are lost simply “disappear”. The comments were allegedly the gist of what the Pope said in a private conversation with Eugenio Scalfari, an atheist journalist in Rome. The Vatican then issued a statement which sought to distance the Pope from the reported comment but, very tellingly, did not deny it either.
One Roman Catholic commentator has described the current pontiff as “‘the Pope of hints’. A hint here, a hint there, perhaps a hint in this interview with Scalfari but perhaps a hint too far. And then a hint from the Vatican that maybe the Pope was just hinting or maybe his hints shouldn’t be put in quotation marks at all.” Such deliberate ambiguity is typical of this Pope. He says enough to tantalise both secular and religious liberals but attempts to use a form of words that can be somehow squared with traditional Roman Catholic formularies.
The doctrine of eternal punishment, however, is unambiguously and solemnly revealed in the Scriptures and the denial or downplaying of it is both a subversion of the Bible’s teaching regarding law and gospel and a flat contradiction of the authority of Christ and His apostles. Subtlety is a hallmark of Satan and, as the visible head of what William Cunningham once described as Satan’s masterpiece for ruining souls, the Pope shows himself time and again to be a master of subtle, deceitful and pernicious language. AWM