About a month ago, just before Easter, Bergoglio gave an interview to Eugenio Scalfari, the 93-year-old journalist, an atheist, and friend of Bergoglio. He granted an interview to Scalfari back in 2015, in which he denied the existence of hell, saying that really evil people do not go to hell after death, but are merely annihilated, that is, cease to exist.

Scalfari reported that this same comment was made by Bergoglio in the 2018 interview. The Vatican the next day issued a qualification, saying that what Scalfari reported was not the exact words of the “pontiff.” The ever wishful thinking Novus Ordo conservatives seized upon this as a “denial.”

Now imagine that a wife hears that her husband said, “My wife is a witch!” She confronts him about this comment. He responds, “Well, those were not my exact words.” He would end up with a frying pan on his head…