Angelus News | January 26, 2024 | Vol. 9 No. 2

POPE WATCH
Hoping hell is empty
While a pope can resign, Pope
Francis said it is not something he is
thinking about or worrying about now.
“It is neither a thought, nor a worry,
nor even a desire; it is a possibility,
open to all popes. But for the moment
it is not at the center of my thoughts,
my worries, my feelings,” he said in an
interview on Italian television Jan. 14.
“As long as I feel I still have the capacity
to serve, I will go on,” the 87-yearold
pope said. “When I can no longer
do it, it will be time to think about it.”
Francis made the comments in an
interview lasting more than 50 minutes
on the program “Che Tempo Che Fa”
on Italy’s Nove channel.
He also said that “in August I have
to make a trip to Polynesia” and that
sometime after that, he hopes to go to
Argentina for the first time since his
election in 2013.
Francis was asked how he imagines
hell if he really believes God forgives
everyone who asks.
“It’s difficult to imagine it,” the pope
said. “What I would say is not a dogma
of faith, but my personal thought: I like
to think hell is empty; I hope it is.”
The pontiff was also asked about his
approval of Fiducia Supplicans (“Supplicating
Trust”), the Dicastery for the
Doctrine of the Faith’s declaration that
a priest can offer informal blessings
to gay couples as long as it is clear the
Church is not equating their union to
marriage.
“The Lord blesses everyone who is
capable of being baptized, that is, every
person,” said Francis. “But then people
must enter into conversation with the
Lord’s blessing and see what path the
Lord is proposing for them.”
The pastoral work of the Church, he
said, is to “take them by the hand and
help them to go down that road, not
condemn them from the start.”
“I always tell confessors: Forgive
everything and treat people as kindly
as the Lord treats us. And then if you
want to help people, you can talk and
help them move on, but forgive everyone,”
he said.
Fabio Fazio, the program’s host, asked
the pope about the phrase in the classic
Act of Contrition: “I detest all my sins
because of thy just punishments.”
“Sin deserves punishment,” the
pope said. But he said he believes
the “literary expression” in the classic
version of the prayer “is too harsh given
God’s love. I prefer to say, ‘Because by
sinning I have saddened your heart.’ ”
Francis said that in his 54 years of
priesthood, he’s only denied forgiveness
in confession once, because of the
person’s “hypocrisy.”
“I’ve always forgiven everything even
when I knew the person could fall
again, but the Lord forgives us. He
helps us not to fall or to fall less, but he
always forgives.”
Asked what worries him, Francis
responded that “some things do scare
me. Some things frighten me. For example,
this escalation of war frightens
me.”
With nuclear weapons stockpiled, he
said, one wonders “how will we end
up, like Noah’s ark? That scares me,
the capacity for self-destruction that
humanity has today.”
Reporting courtesy of Catholic News
Service Rome bureau chief Cindy
Wooden.
Papal Prayer Intention for January: We pray that the Holy
Spirit may help us to recognize the gift of different charisms
within the Christian community and to discover the richness
of different traditions and rituals in the Catholic Church.
2 • ANGELUS • January 26, 2024