Pope Regarding Hell: “Let not your heart be troubled.”

http://wdtprs.com/blog/2018/03/pope...ell-fr-z-says-let-not-your-heart-be-troubled/

Pope Francis’ alleged remarks about Hell. Fr. Z says, “Let not your heart be troubled.”
Posted on 29 March 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf
Today is Holy Thursday, which I had hoped might be a little quiet, giving me some time in silence. It was not to be.

His Holiness Pope Francis inexplicably met once again with Eugenio Scalfari, the 90+ year old atheist Communist of the Italian daily La Repubblica. Unless Scalfari simply made it up (which I don’t rule out), Pope Francis said something confusing about the existence of Hell and that unrepentant souls go into nothingness, a kind of annihilation.

Citing Dorothy Parker, “What fresh hell is this?”, quoth I.

The papal spokesman put out a statement that doesn’t necessarily deny what Scarfari said the Pope said. However, the statement did say:

“Nessun virgolettato del succitato articolo deve essere considerato quindi come una fedele trascrizione delle parole del Santo Padre. … Not a single quoted word of the above-mentioned article should, therefore, be considered as a faithful transcription of the words of the Holy Father.” HERE

We have that to go on. It ain’t much, but it’s not nothing.

Because I am getting lots of email, and because my phone sounds like a pinball machine with texts coming in from every corner of the globe and from people of all Christian vocations (including some media people), I’ll say this:

First, try to keep in perspective some of the confusing things the Holy Father says and go immediately to your catechisms and review. We have multiple catechisms at our disposal. Chief among them are these.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church.
US HERE – UK HERE (There are many editions. Look around.)

The Catechism of the Council of Trent for Parish Priests.
US HERE – UK HERE (There are many editions. Look around.)

Also, the Baltimore Catechism, which has different volumes for different ages (US HERE – UK HERE). It’s so useful, in its Q&A format. And the Catechism of Pius X is also great. (US HERE – UK HERE). There are many good resources available.

Second, the Pope and the Church do not and cannot change the Church’s doctrine through unrecorded chats with Communist newspapermen.

Third, I think there is no person on Earth more beset by the Enemy of the Soul and the Enemy’s many earthly agents than the Vicar of Christ. Think about the timing of this… HOLY THURSDAY? Old Scratch and his bootlicking Communist journalist pawn chose well. Look at the confusion they caused. Hence, as a Catholic, understand that the Devil and Hell really exist, and that people really can go to Hell – which is eternal and not nothingness – we must – again, as believing Catholics – get down on our knees and pray for the Pope, especially with the time honored Pro Pontifice prayer.

Fourth, if news from Rome upsets you all the time, stop reading news from Rome all the time. Cui bono? Not everyone has the stomach for this trench warfare that we are in with the forces of evil and their journalist collaborators. So, pay attention to your vocations and dedicate yourselves to what is good, true and beautiful in them.

Fifth, keep the Devil at bay with all available means. Avail yourselves of (truly) blessed objects and sacramentals. Ask your angel guardian to help you. Also, say short exclamatory prayers all during the day as you work or when you read the confusing stuff. Perhaps the prayer of Job could be useful. When he was beset he cried out what we must cry out:

Then Job rose up, and rent his garments, and having shaven his head fell down upon the ground and worshipped, and said: Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away: as it hath pleased the Lord so is it done: blessed be the name of the Lord. In all these things Job sinned not by his lips, nor spoke he any foolish thing against God.

You read the confusing headline. You peruse the article. You get mad. Shake it off and say “Blessed be the name of the Lord!” and then get back to the duties of your vocation.


Con’t

 

Con’t


Friends, here is the straight stuff.

Your soul, once created by God, as an image of God, is eternal. Once created, it cannot cease to be. Eh-vur. The Lord Himself opined about the Lord’s betrayer: “It would be better for him if he had not been born.” Why would He say that? His betrayer was indeed born and his soul is not ever going to be nothing. His fate will be eternal, and not just for a time.

At the end of your life (or if the Lord returns) you will face judgment.

Once your soul separates from your body, you will not be able to change your mind or repent in a salvific way. You will be “baked in” and “locked on” to your life choices without any appetites to pull you onto another choice vector. That’s it.

Then you will be assigned as you have chosen.

If you have died in God’s friendship, you will go to Heaven, either immediately or after a time of purification in Purgatory.

If you don’t die in God’s friendship, you will be immediately separated from God and all that is good, true and beautiful to spend the rest of eternity in Hell.

Hell will involve the horrific pain of loss of what you could have had. It will also, after the bodily resurrection, necessarily involve the pain of sense. Just as spiritual sins are worse than carnal sins, so too the pain of loss will be worse than the pain of sense. However, that doesn’t mean that the pain of sense will be painless. Carnal sins may be less serious than spiritual sins, but they are still enough to damn you. Sin is death and pain is bad.

Throughout the centuries the pains of Hell have been described as “fire”. The other day I took something out of a toaster oven and my finger tip contacted the metal rack. Not good. I’ve also experienced, as you have, loss and betrayal and abandonment in life. Those are worse than physical suffering and, in fact, they can cause physical suffering.

But these earthly pains and losses are nothing compared to the unending, hopeless agony of eternal Hell.

Heaven will be more amazing than Hell is hideous. We will see God. In seeing God we will eternally be drawn to the Trinity in a glorious spiral of joy that involves also learning more about ourselves as His images and seeking ever more His transforming glory, which He will share. It will never be anything less than ecstatic and filled with amazement and joy.

We can make choices in this life. We must practice dying, so that when we do die – and we will – we will be locked on to the right choice. Barring extraordinary graces and circumstances, people tend to die as they lived.

How are YOU living?

Hell is REAL.

Don’t give even 5 seconds of thought to the absurd notion that there is no Hell.

Instead, try to imagine the first 5 seconds of realization that strikes the soul just consigned to Hell.

It is not a bad thing to review this on such a day as Holy Thursday. After all, this day sacramentally makes the mystery of Christ’s Passion present to us and we to it. Christ underwent the Passion so that we could be saved from … WHAT? An eternity in HELL which our sins merit.

In instituting the priesthood and giving us the Eucharist in the context of His Passion, He saves us for Himself in Heaven.

In John 14 the Lord said:

Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many mansions. If not, I would have told you: because I go to prepare a place for you. And if I shall go, and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and will take you to myself; that where I am, you also may be. And whither I go you know, and the way you know. Thomas saith to him: Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way? Jesus saith to him: I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father, but by me.

 

https://onepeterfive.com/did-franci...ican-plays-another-shell-game-with-the-truth/

Did Francis Deny Hell Exists? Vatican Plays Another Shell Game With the Truth
Steve Skojec March 29, 2018 0 Comments

“An error which is not resisted is approved; a truth which is not defended is suppressed…. He who does not oppose an evident crime is open to the suspicion of secret complicity.” – Pope Felix III

“The Vatican is filled with heretics and liars” is a story I’ve grown incredibly weary of telling. This particular ditty isn’t just familiar, it’s stuck on repeat, with the volume turned all the way up.

The latest episode comes from what is, by my unofficial guestimate, somewhere in the range of the seventh, eighth, or ninth published conversation with the pope by the nonegenarian atheist editor of Italy’s La Repubblica — a man famous for his interviewing style, which does not include voice recorders or the taking of notes, but conversations which he later reconstructs from memory. I’d go back and find each one and count them, but that’s an hour of my life I’d never get back, and after five or six, it all becomes a meaningless blur anyway. As one of America’s most notorious political minds famously asked: “At this point, what difference does it make?!”

As they have multiple times before, Scalfari says that he and the pope talked about Hell — specifically, how it doesn’t really exist:

[Scalfari:] Your Holiness, in our last meeting you told me that at a certain point our species will disappear, and God, always using His creative seed, will create other species. You never spoke to me about souls who die in sin and go to hell to suffer there for eternity. Instead you spoke to me of good souls who are admitted to the contemplation of God. But what of evil souls? Where do they go in punishment?

[Francis:] They do not go anywhere in punishment. Those who repent obtain the forgiveness of God and go among the ranks of those who contemplate him, but those who do not repent and therefore cannot be forgiven vanish. Hell does not exist, only the disappearance of sinful souls.

I’ll pause for a moment to let those of you who still possess the capacity to be surprised to collect your jaw from the floor.

Scalfari isn’t exactly being honest (or is suffering from a strange memory lapse) when he says that the pope has never spoken to him about this before. In fact, this statement is indicative of the unique problem Scalfari poses for those trying to discern what to believe about his representations of the pope’s thoughts. Scalfari has, however, given us other examples on this topic in the past. For example, in October of 2017, Scalfari told us that the pope, along with his hand-picked pervert at the head of both the Pontifical Academy for Life and the John Paul II institute, Archbishop Vincenzo Pagalia, believes that that “the souls dominated by evil and not repentant cease to exist while those who are redeemed from evil will be assumed into beatitude, contemplating God.”

Earlier that same year, Scalfari told us that the pope had said, “In a millennium or so our human species will be extinguished and souls will merge with God.”

And in 2015, the dynamic duo were said to have discussed Francis’ bizarre eschatology with similar results:

“What happens to that lost soul? Will it be punished? And how? The response of Francis is distinct and clear: there is no punishment, but the annihilation of that soul. All the others will participate in the beatitude of living in the presence of the Father. The souls that are annihilated will not take part in that banquet; with the death of the body their journey is finished.”

There are those who have taken pains to explain every Scalfari interview away — each one, it seems, contains a bombshell or two — by pointing out the inaccuracy of an interview method that relies on the memory of a 93-year-old man to reconstruct the contents of an undocumented conversation.

But it is clear by now that the pope is relying on this very excuse. When he wants to let his freak flag fly — to put his most controversial ideas out into the public eye with no fear of accountability — he just calls up his old pal Eugenio and hoists his wildest theories up the flagpole. As they disseminate to the masses, the Vatican PR team goes into spin mode while the pope is nowhere to be found, leaving everyone with the inescapable impression that yes, of course he said it, but you can’t really quote him on it now, can you?

As before, with today’s alleged denial of the dogma of Hell, the Vatican has released a statement that constitutes neither an affirmation nor a denial of what the pope said. As always, we are given a convenient — and entirely unconvincing — excuse:




Read the rest at the link

 

I try to be as charitable as possible, but if the Scalfari interviews are always so filled with errors then why continue to use him?

And more importantly why reprint his interviews in your own Vatican printed books?

Fool me once shame on you.
Fool me five, six, seven times?

 

http://m.ncregister.com/blog/edward-pentin/pope-allegedly-says-hell-doesnt-exist-in-latest-scalfari-interview

Pope Allegedly Says Hell Doesn't Exist in Latest Scalfari ‘Interview’
Posted by Edward Pentin on Thursday Mar 29th, 2018 at 10:19 AM

Nonagenarian atheist philosopher also claims Pope is honoured to be called a revolutionary, but the Vatican stresses that although the two men met, no interview was given and the comments are not a “faithful” rendering of what was said.


Pope Francis has again received Eugenio Scalfari, the 93 year old atheist philosopher, leading to more controversial comments that the Vatican has had to insist are not “faithful” to the Pope’s words.

In his fifth meeting with the atheist philosopher, Scalfari — who neither records interviews nor takes notes — said the Pope allegedly told him again that hell does not exist and that he is honored to be called a “revolutionary.”

The Pope’s purported comments were published Thursday in La Repubblica, the left-leaning Italian newspaper Scalfari co-founded and which the Pope has said is his favorite newspaper.

“Hell does not exist – what exists is the disappearance of sinful souls,” the Pope allegedly said. “They are not punished, those who repent obtain the forgiveness of God and go among the ranks of the souls who contemplate him. But those who do not repent, and therefore cannot be forgiven, disappear.”

Headlines were quick to spread around the world saying Pope Francis believes hell does not exist, a belief which would break with 2,000 years of Church teaching.

Vatican spokesman Greg Burke said in a statement Thursday that the Pope had “recently received” Scalfari “in a private meeting at Easter, but did not grant him any interviews.”

He added that “as reported today” by Scalfari, “the article is the result of its reconstruction, in which the exact words spoken by the Pope are not cited.” Burke said “no quotation marks in the above article should therefore be considered as a faithful transcription of the Holy Father's words.”

Previous conversations between the Pope and Scalfari have often caused controversy, and led to the Vatican issuing similar statements afterwards, neither confirming or fully denying the Pope said the actual words attributed to him, but casting doubt on their veracity.

The Pope’s comments on this occasion are questionable as they are at odds with previous statements in which he has spoken of Hell’s existence, most recently last week when he appealed to the mafia to give up their lives of crime and avoid eternal damnation.

But Francis has also given signals to the contrary, preaching last year that “everything will be saved — everything” and that at the end of history there will be an “immense tent, where God will welcome all mankind so as to dwell with them definitively.” He also said judgment was not to be feared because “at the end of our history there is the merciful Jesus.”

Elsewhere in the interview, the Pope allegedly said the word “revolutionary” is one which “honors me in the sense in which it is said.” He also discussed the theme of creation and called on Europe to strengthen itself politically and morally.

In previous interviews with the famous Italian atheist, the Pope is supposed to have told Scalfari not to convert, said that “Communists think like Christians,” and that “there is no Catholic God.” In an interview in 2015, Scalfari reported the Pope allegedly making a similar statement to today, that “there is no punishment” for an unrepentant soul, “but the annihilation of that soul.”

Scalfari said Thursday that he and the Pope phone each other “often” and “exchange news with one another, but sometimes we meet up again and speak for longer, on religion and politics.”

After a previous encounter between the Pope and Scalfari in 2016, Riccardo Cascioli, director of the Italian Catholic daily La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana, welcomed the fact that the Pope is establishing relationships with people such as Scalfari “who are far away.”

But he also warned that comments coming from such interviews become “a cause of scandal in the literal sense of the term” because they “disorientate and confuse many Catholics, also because these sentences are then used and abused” by those whose purpose is “the destruction of the Church.”

 

Isn't there some kind of heretical belief which claims that the universe is evolving towards perfection. I think part of it is that humans are growing ever more enlightened until they also reach a god-like perfection and that eventually all creation will be absorbed by and into God? And didn't the Jesuit Teilhard deChardin whose beliefs are being given a new lease of life by the well-connected and self-styled Catholic intelligentsia promote something along those lines? Perhaps Scalfari's report is more accurate than anyone is willing to admit. And perhaps the Vatican isn't calling him a liar because although he doesn't take notes nobody can guarantee that there is no recording anywhere of Pope Francis which could confirm that he holds the beliefs reported by Scalfari.

If Scalfari's report is accurate (and the Vatican hasn't denied it), Pope Francis' beliefs would align with those of the Superior General of the Jesuits who is on record as saying that Satan is not a real being but a construct of the early Christians to explain evil.

Looks like the false church within Christ's Church is revealing itself little by little. I can't understand why the faithful Bishops haven't called for an investigation into the circumstances leading up to and surrounding the election of Pope Francis. A papal bull issued on foot of the Council of Trent warned that a follower of Martin Luther could get himself elected to the papacy. 500 years later, it looks like that's what happened, although I doubt that even old sin boldly Martin would have denied the existence of Hell.

 

Yes there is and its Luciferian. The idea is passed off that this group of "Luciferians" were sent here and are helping us all to attain oneness with the true creator in spite of our jealous God who only controls this world. It is all a distorted image of the Bible which they have twisted to suit their ends. They say God is not the OT God of the Bible mind you who is controlling and severe according to them. Its a very convoluted and relativistic story they have made up to destroy the concept of Satan as we know him as well as God and replace it with a giant kumbaya. We all reincarnate over and over to push to the next plain of existence and if when the harvest comes;

(Revelation 14:14-16 New King James Version (NKJV)
Reaping the Earth’s Harvest
14 Then I looked, and behold, a white cloud, and on the cloud sat One like the Son of Man, having on His head a golden crown, and in His hand a sharp sickle. 15 And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to Him who sat on the cloud, “Thrust in Your sickle and reap, for the time has come for You to reap, for the harvest of the earth is ripe.” 16 So He who sat on the cloud thrust in His sickle on the earth, and the earth was reaped.
)

they have attained a high rate of negativity in the world then they progress toward their goal of unity. If they do not then they have to go at it again.
Many of the new agers puppet this like the teachings of RA and the Law of One. They all tie in.
It's going to get a lot worse than the possibility of a mere Lutheran at the helm IMO Dolours, ever seen those coexist bumper stickers with all the symbols of the worlds major religions? The Lutherans are bewildered and do not understand even the direction of their own Church according to my Lutheran brother which is not surprising given that they teach such a distorted view of the Gospel IMO.

 

All of this, IMO ties into the Masonic, Luciferian, and new age movement including modernism and the idea of the evolution of faith inside the Church that men such as de Chardan put forth. It will not be revealed as such IMO but it will be revealed, we are seeing it now which means that the time is very short. They can not help but reveal it. They revel in it and their despise of Our Lord is evident by the world in which they have created and are given dominion. This is why there is such importance in heeding the words of Our Lady of Revelation and Fatima and why they hate her so because she takes men such as Bruno and with Gods Grace makes them Saints. We all need to pray the Rosary each day and offer sacrifices for the sins of others. To do what our Faith asks of us each and every day according to our state and vocations.

 

...After reading of the pope's alleged statement on there being no hell, I came then to this site, and this thread, to skim over posted comments and see if he clarified his statement...or if it was not actually a statement he made. Unless I missed something, it hasn't been made clear to me that his "didn't" say this, and I see no evidence, yet, of him clarifying it. Point being, if the pope said this, I find that most disturbing, and cause for great alarm.

 

Yes, and why not make it abundantly clear on this Holy of days? Instead of releasing a statement which is anything but.

 

I'm not sure, Don, that Teilhard was a complete apostate. I have to preface anything I say about this with a confession of my ignorance about what I have seen referred to as the Cosmic Christ. From what I have read (not a whole lot) about Teilhard, he didn't deny Christ's divinity and he did profess obedience to the Church. I don't think there's anything wrong with saying that we all will be perfected in our ultimate unity with God if/when we reach eternal salvation. We get a taste of this when we receive the Blessed Eucharist and pray that we will become what we have received.

Perhaps Teilhard didn't explain himself clearly enough or perhaps his own understanding hadn't fully developed. His admirers like to portray him as something of a victim soul - a near perfect saintly man. It seems to me that he was far from perfect and, like many extremely intelligent people, he wasn't right all the time but people who latched on to what he got right were and are reluctant to acknowledge that he could ever be mistaken. Some of his problems with the Vatican at that time appear to have been on the question of evolution and original sin. His admirers say that he did believe in original sin. Perhaps he didn't make that clear enough to his superiors. According to Wikipedia, Teilhard believed that Christ had a third nature, which ties in with the Cosmic Christ. I reckon that wouldn't have won him any friends in the Vatican of his day.

I can't figure out whether Teilhard's belief that we are all evolving in the direction of the pull of the Omega Point allows for the possibility of God intervening at any time before evolution reaches its ultimate goal. The following from Wikipedia is what gives me the impression that Pope Francis is a Teilhard devotee and possibly explains his belief that nobody goes to Hell. It could also explain the Jesuit Superior General's belief that Satan is not a real being:

Teilhard also used his perceived correlation between spiritual and material to describe Christ, arguing that Christ not only has a mystical dimension but also takes on a physical dimension as he becomes the organizing principle of the universe—that is, the one who "holds together" the universe (Col. 1:17b). For Teilhard, Christ forms not only the eschatological end toward which his mystical/ecclesial body is oriented, but he also "operates physically in order to regulate all things"[19] becoming "the one from whom all creation receives its stability."[20] In other words, as the one who holds all things together, "Christ exercises a supremacy over the universe which is physical, not simply juridical. He is the unifying centre of the universe and its goal. The function of holding all things together indicates that Christ is not only man and God; he also possesses a third aspect—indeed, a third nature—which is cosmic."[21] In this way, the Pauline description of the Body of Christ is not simply a mystical or ecclesial concept for Teilhard; it is cosmic. This cosmic Body of Christ "extend throughout the universe and compris[es] all things that attain their fulfillment in Christ [so that] . . . the Body of Christ is the one single thing that is being made in creation."[22] Teilhard describes this cosmic amassing of Christ as "Christogenesis." According to Teilhard, the universe is engaged in Christogenesis as it evolves toward its full realization at Omega, a point which coincides with the fully realized Christ.[16] It is at this point that God will be "all in all" (1Cor. 15:28c).

Our century is probably more religious than any other. How could it fail to be, with such problems to be solved? The only trouble is that it has not yet found a God it can adore.[18]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Teilhard_de_Chardin
​

Perhaps the above also relates to what the Pope said about God not being God without us.

 

It is greatly alarming. Even more because the response the Vatican gave did not deny that the Pope said there was no Hell or eternal punishment. It gave a non-answer only saying that the statements made by Scalfari were not direct quotes...but we already knew that. Scalfari doesn't give direct quotes. This seems more like obfuscation than an attempt to assure the Catholic faithful that the Pope did not say anything of the sort and that Scalfari was making it up or confused.

Without a clear statement on this matter the Vatican is in danger of leaving the faithful confused on what the Pope actually said and believes.

We all know how much the Vatican hates to leave the faithful confused...

I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for clarification.

 

Let's be clear, to state that there is no Hell, that all souls are not eternal, and that there is no eternal punishment for the damned are a few different heresies all lumped together. I am not saying Pope Francis is a heretic. I am saying these beliefs are.

Annihilationism is not in any way, shape, or form Catholic.

This needs to be corrected quickly and clearly. The Pope is already listed in Wikipedia as of today appearing to deny the existence of Hell. The entry most of the way down the page reads:

However, in March of 2018 Pope Francis appeared to deny the existence of Hell. In an interview with an Italian journalist the Pope was asked about what happens to the souls of those who die unrepentant. To which the Pope 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."[75]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annihilationism

Whether the Pope made this statement or not many are now under the assumption that this is what he believes. It was in all of the headlines today. Worldwide. This is not some minor matter to ignore. It is one of the largest and most basic dogmas of the Church

This needs to be clarified. To not do so will only lend credence to the claim that this is what the Pope believes.

One would think that if Scalfari was lying or confused that the Vatican would want to set the record straight on such an important matter. Let us pray that this proves to be a false statement and is refuted.

 

From an atheist's point of view there is no hell. So why bother to ask the question? Sounds so contrived I can't believe it would even garner discussion . . .

 

Because Scalfari is a journalist and talking to the Pope is a big deal. Journalists don't have to believe in everything they ask questions about.

 

There won't be any denial or clarification from the Vatican. Scalfari interviewed the Pope in 2015 and reported that Pope Francis believes in the annihilation of souls. There was no clarification then and the very fact that Pope Francis continues to use Scalfari to test the waters on reaction to his heretical beliefs is testament to Scalfari's credibility. All the usual papolators in the Catholic media will whinge about the Pope being misrepresented in the secular press but that dog stopped hunting with Amoris Laetitia effectively handing over to the State the definition of valid Catholic marriage. Hot on the heels of lettergate, I don't know why anyone would believe a Vatican spokeman before Scalfari whose reporting on Pope Francis has proved to be remarkably accurate - more accurate than many in the "respectable" Catholic news outlets.

The Jesuit "America Magazine" is already on damage control, with the usual BS about Scalfari not taking notes. They make a big deal about Pope Francis mentioning Hell to Catholics, but he's hardly going to come out straight to Catholics and say "I don't believe that Hell exists", just like he didn't come out straight in Amoris Laetitia and say "I believe that the Church should recognise civil divorce and remarriage" or "I believe in gay marriage". It's his usual sneaky chipping away at the faith he has sworn to defend. I don't know why the Jesuits don't just set up their own church where they can come out openly and preach modernism as dogma.

Here's a piece about the 2015 interview: https://the-american-catholic.com/2015/03/23/popewatch-hell-damnation-and-pope-francis/

 

Because contrary to what atheists claim they believe in everything not nothing.

 

In general I would agree that there is not a great chance that the Vatican will clarify...however...this hit the news like a firestorm today. Many Protestants who do not understand how the Church works and also many people who just read headlines may now think that the Pope and possibly the entire Catholic Church now don't believe in Hell or eternal life for everyone anymore.

If Pope Francis wants unification with Protestants then I would suspect he will need to clarify this. That being said, I cannot figure out how his mind works at all...so who knows?

 

Of course he wasn't, if he was he would be readily recognized as such and all his works would have been in vain. He pushed it absolutely as far as he could though while remaining inside the Church.
I wonder why he bothered?

 

Pope Francis wants unification with whomever he's talking to at any given moment - except maybe Catholics who believe what the Church has always taught. He's inclined to tell people what they want to hear or what will make him look good in their eyes. He's the ultimate populist.

Are you sure that the particular brand of Lutheranism he wants unification with believes in hell? If so, it's probably on the same list of beliefs which includes marriage being a lifelong union between one man and one woman. According to this report about a survey in Norway, a third of members of the Church of Norway (Lutheran) said they were atheists: https://www.lifeinnorway.net/majority-of-norwegians-dont-believe-in-god/ . According to this report, 70% of the population of Finand are members of the Lutheran Church but only 33% of the population believe in a Christian God. The survey in Finland was carried out by the Lutheran Church and they see the 33% as good news because it's a 2% increase on a previous study. It isn't clear from the report whether the extra 2% are Lutherans or whether they are immigrants to Finland. https://www.christiantoday.com/article/christianity-is-rising-again-in-finland/100757.htm