In another interview with his longtime atheist friend, Eugenio Scalfari, Pope Francis claims that Hell does not exist and that condemned souls just “disappear.” This is a denial of the 2,000-year-old teaching of the Catholic Church about the reality of Hell and the eternal existence of the soul.

The interview between Scalfari and the Pope was published March 28, 2018 in La Repubblica. The relevant section on Hell was translated by the highly respected web log, Rorate Caeli.

The interview is headlined, “The Pope: It is an honor to be called revolutionary.” (Il Papa: “È un onore essere chiamato rivoluzionario.”)

Scalfari says to the Pope, “Your Holiness, in our previous meeting you told me that our species will disappear in a certain moment and that God, still out of his creative force, will create new species. You have never spoken to me about the souls who died in sin and will go to hell to suffer it for eternity. You have however spoken to me of good souls, admitted to the contemplation of God. But what about bad souls? Where are they punished?”

Pope Francis says, “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.”

Painting of Jesus rejecting the Devil’s
temptations in the desert.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states: “The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity. Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell, where they suffer the punishments of hell, ‘eternal fire.’ The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs.” (1035)

The Catechism further states, “The affirmations of Sacred Scripture and the teachings of the Church on the subject of hell are a call to the responsibility incumbent upon man to make use of his freedom in view of his eternal destiny. They are at the same time an urgent call to conversion: ‘Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few.’

“Since we know neither the day nor the hour, we should follow the advice of the Lord and watch constantly so that, when the single course of our earthly life is completed, we may merit to enter with him into the marriage feast and be numbered among the blessed, and not, like the wicked and slothful servants, be ordered to depart into the eternal fire, into the outer darkness where ‘men will weep and gnash their teeth.'”

Source: Pope Francis: ‘There Is No Hell’

A helicopter carrying first daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, had to be rerouted after one of its engines failed, law enforcement officials told CNN. The senior White House aides were flying from Washington, DC, to New York on Thursday afternoon in a two-engine helicopter when one engine failed, sources told the network. The chopper had to return to Ronald Reagan National Airport, where the couple hopped on a commercial flight instead. It is unclear how far into the less than two-hour

Source: Helicopter carrying Jared and Ivanka experiences engine failure | New York Post

A Democratic congressman from Long Island implied that Americans should grab weapons and oppose President Trump by force, if the commander-in-chief doesn’t follow the Constitution.

Rep. Tom Suozzi made the remark to constituents at a town hall last week, saying that folks opposed to Trump might resort to the “Second Amendment.”

“It’s really a matter of putting public pressure on the president,” Suozzi said in a newly released video of the March 12 talk in Huntington. “This is where the Second Amendment comes in, quite frankly, because you know, what if the president was to ignore the courts? What would you do? What would we do?”

A listener then blurts out, “What’s the Second Amendment?”

The left-leaning Democrat says, “The Second Amendment is the right to bear arms.”

The spectators laughed — some nervously. Republicans were not amused.

“This video is incredibly disturbing. It’s surreal to watch a sitting member of Congress suggest that his constituents should take up arms against the president of the United States,” said National Republican Campaign Committee spokesman Chris Martin.

Suozzi political adviser Kim Devlin denied the pol was “advocating for an armed insurrection.”

But the Suozzi campaign at the same time seemed to double down on the comments, as they forwarded a line penned by Thomas Jefferson that called for armed resistance.

“What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance. Let them take arms,” the quote said.

Suozzi’s comment seems to conflict with his recent push for gun control following the Parkland, Florida, school shooting.

Suozzi even participated in the March 14 student walkout for gun control outside the US Capitol — and called on the young people of his district to back tightened gun laws.

“I think we should engage the high school students of #NY03, and all of Long Island, to promote gun violence prevention legislation,” he said in a Feb. 21 tweet.

Trump himself has in the past used language similar to Suozzi’s. During the 2016 campaign, he told a crowd at a rally in North Carolina that if Hillary Clinton were elected and able to nominate a Supreme Court justice, there would be nothing that gun supporters could do. He then added: “Although the Second Amendment people — maybe there is, I don’t know.”

The remark was widely seen as a veiled call for violence, though Trump denied that was his meaning.

Suozzi, a first-term congressman elected in 2016, is seeking re-election this fall. He formerly served as Nassau County executive.

He is expected to easily win the Democratic primary and face GOP challenger Dan Debono, a former US Navy SEAL, in the general election.Source: Congressman suggests Second Amendment as means of opposing Trump | New York Post

Novelist Dan Brown (The Da Vinci Code) has donated € 300,000 to the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica to digitize and preserve part of its priceless collection, including Hermetica, alchemy, mysticism, Rosicrucians and Kabbala.Thanks to Brown’s donation, the public will be able to access the core collection of some 4,600 ancient books online in the near future. Brown is a great admirer of the library (widely known as The Ritman Library after its founder Joost R. Ritman) and visited on several occasions while writing his novels The Lost Symbol and Inferno. I consider it a great honor, the world-famous author said, “to play a role in this important preservation initiative that will make these texts available to the public.” The Dutch Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds is also contributing to the digitization project, to the amount of € 15,000.
The comprehensive digitization project will be carried out by Picturae, a company specializing in making Dutch cultural heritage digitally accessible. It is expected that the core collection of The Ritman Library will become available online in the spring of 2017.Source: Dan Brown donates to digitize anctient texts – The Ritman Library

Actor Sean Penn’s debut novel’s main character calls for the assassination of the president and dares the commander in chief to ‘Tweet me, b****’, DailyMail.com can reveal.The two-time Oscar winner’s 176-page fiction, titled Bob Honey Who Just Do Stuff, is about a ‘modern American man, entrepreneur, and part-time assassin’.The main character, septic tank cleaner Bob Honey, tells tales of working with military contractors in Iraq, being employed by the government to kill the nation’s resource-draining elderly, and meeting an El Chapo-esque drug lord who had just escaped prison.Penn first released the gonzo journalism-style novel as an audiobook in 2016 under the pseudonym ‘Pappy Pariah’.

Source: Sean Penn’s novel calls for the assassination of a president | Daily Mail Online

New York City could be the next site of a chemical assassination attempt if world leaders fail to punish Russia for its alleged role in poising of a former spy in the United Kingdom, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley warned Wednesday.

“If we don’t take immediate concrete measures to address this now, Salisbury will not be the last place we see chemical weapons used,” Haley told the United Nations Security Council. “They could be used here in New York, or in cities of any country that sits on this Council. This is a defining moment.”

Haley raised the specter of new attacks during an emergency council meeting, held at the request of British officials who have accused Russia of using “a military-grade nerve agent” to target a former military intelligence officer who committed treason. Russian diplomats have denied responsibility for the incident, but British investigators say they have identified the poison as a chemical weapon produced by the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

“Time and time again, member-states say they oppose the use of chemical weapons under any circumstance,” Haley said. “Now one member stands accused of using chemical weapons on the sovereign soil of another member. The credibility of this council will not survive if we fail to hold Russia accountable.”

Russia has denied responsibility for the March 4 incident, which left former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia hospitalized, and warned British Prime Minister Theresa May against considering a cyber-attack or other aggressive retaliation.

“A hysterical atmosphere is being created by London,” Russian Ambassador Visaly Nebenzia told the Security Council. “We would like to warn that this will not remain without reaction on our part.”

Russia faulted the United Kingdom for taking action before submitting to a formal investigation brokered by Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. “Those experts will not be convinced by their argument,” he predicted.

The British representative at the meeting countered that the United Kingdom has invited the OPCW to conduct an independent test, while faulting Russia for ignoring May’s demand for an explanation earlier this week.

“We have received no meaningful response,” deputy ambassador Jonathan Allen said during the meeting. “This council should not fall for their attempt to muddy the waters.”

Haley, for her part, compared the Skripal attack to North Korea’s use of a nerve agent to assassinate the half-brother of dictator Kim Jong-un — a murder that resulted in the designation of North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism. She linked the Salisbury incident to the increasingly-regular use of chemical weapons, especially in Syria, and urged Russia to “come clean” about the assassination attempt.

“The Russians complained recently that we criticize them too much,” she said. “If the Russian government stopped using chemical weapons to assassinate its enemies; and if the Russian government stopped helping its Syrian ally to use chemical weapons to kill Syrian children; and if Russia cooperated with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons by turning over all information related to this nerve agent, we would stop talking about them. We take no pleasure in having to constantly criticize Russia, but we need Russia to stop giving us so many reasons to do so.”

Nebenzia argued Russia had no reason to try to kill Skripal. He described the former double agent as “a perfect victim” for a plot to frame Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government in the run-up to the March 18 presidential elections.

“[T]he most probable source origin for this chemical are the countries which have since the end of the 90s been carrying out intensive research on these kinds of weapons, including the UK,” Nebenzia told the Security Council. “If the UK is so firmly convinced this is a [Soviet-era] Novichok gas, then that means that they have the samples of this and they have the formula for this and they are capable of manufacturing it.”

Allen replied by citing Putin’s past pledge to punish Russian traitors.

“Let me quote the Russian president, when we think about who benefits,” Allen said. “In 2010, [Putin] said, ‘Traitors will kick the bucket, believe me. Those other folks betrayed their friends, their brothers-in-arms. Whatever they got in exchange for it, those 30 pieces of silver they were given, they will choke on it.”Source: Nikki Haley warns: Russia could use chemical weapons in New York

A Silicon Valley billionaire is paying the ultimate price for immortality: death.

Well, that, and a spare ten grand.

Entrepreneur Sam Altman is one of 25 people who has splashed the cash to join a waiting list at Nectome – a startup that promises to upload your brain into a computer to grant you eternal life.

There’s just one (huge) catch: It has to kill you first.

The process, as described in the MIT Technology Review, involves embalming your brain for it to potentially be simulated later in a computer.

The living customer would be hooked up to a machine and then pumped full of Nectome’s custom embalming chemicals.

The method is “100 percent fatal,” claims the company.

“The user experience will be identical to physician-assisted suicide,” Nectome’s co-founder Robert McIntyre revealed to the publication.

“Our mission is to preserve your brain well enough to keep all its memories intact: from that great chapter of your favorite book to the feeling of cold winter air, baking an apple pie, or having dinner with your friends and family,” writes Nectome on its site.

“We believe that within the current century it will be feasible to digitize this information and use it to recreate your consciousness.”

How delightful.

The reality, however, is that physician-assisted suicide is currently only legal in five out of 50 US states, and individuals seeking it must have a terminal illness, as well as a prognosis of six months or less to live.

As crazy as it sounds, the idea of uploading our consciousness into a computer is gaining ground among techies and scientists.

Futurologist Dr. Ian Pearson previously told The Sun that in 50 years time we’ll be able to transfer our brains to the cloud (tech speak for online storage).

That way you’ll be able to “use any android that you feel like to inhabit the real world”, he said.

Altman, whose company Y Combinator funds startups, is best buds with fellow Silicon Valley billionaire (and PayPal co-founder) Peter Thiel.

The two were recently lampooned when Altman let slip that they were planning to escape a potential apocalypse by hiding in the bunker in Thiel’s home in New Zealand.

But, if you’re living in a computer, do you even have to worry about the end of days?Source: Billionaire signs up to be killed, have brain digitally preserved | New York Post

WASHINGTON — Passengers onboard United Express Flight 5449 restrained a Boise, Idaho, woman who was ranting about being God. Video posted online purportedly shows a passenger working to tie up the woman’s feet as another man holds her down in the aisle. “I am God, I am God, I am God,” she was heard screaming in the video. Moments earlier she’d tried to open the aircraft cabin door while the plane was in flight which was traveling from San Francisco to Boise earlier Monday. The plane landed safely and Bo

Source: United Express Flight 5449: Woman restrained after trying to open airplane cabin door during flight – CBS News