Luke Coppen begins his cover article on Pope Francis for the United Kingdom’s Spectator wondering why Italian journalist Eugenio Scalfari would write that the pope has in effect “abolished” the traditional conception of sin. He blames Scalfari’s confusion on a manipulative media: “Why would anyone, let alone a very highly regarded thinker and writer like Scalfari, believe the Pope had done away with such a basic tenet of Christian theology? Well, since he took charge last year, Francis has been made into a superstar of the liberal left.”
What goes unmentioned in Coppen’s article is the pope’s interview with Scalfari — an interview taken down from the Vatican’s website but not repudiated by it (papal spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi has called it generally reliable and “faithful to the thought” of the pope). In that interview, Pope Francis is quoted as saying to Scalfari: “Each one has his idea of good and evil and must choose to follow the good and fight the evil as he understands them.” In a previous letter to Scalfari, the pope made similar declarations.
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