The Holy See has decided to delete the interview between Pope Francis and Eugenio Scalfari, the founder of Italian newspaper La Repubblica from the Vatican’s main portal (www.vatican.va).
Scalfari had met with Francis to thank him for the open letter received and published by the newspaper.
In response to journalists’ questions about the reason for this
decision, the Holy See’s spokesman, Fr. Federico Lombardi replied: “The
information in the interview is reliable on a general level but not on
the level of each individual point analysed: this is why it was decided
the text should not be available for consultation on the Holy See
website. Its removal is a final update on the nature of this text. Some
mistakes were made regarding its value, which was questioned. The
Secretariat of State took the decision.”
Ever since the interview was published, Fr. Lombardi declared that
the Pope had not looked over the text personally. Scalfari had sent the
text to the Vatican. The article did in fact contain expressions that
did not seem like typical expressions Francis would have used.
There was
also a mistake regarding what had gone on in the Sistine chapel.
According to one of the answers, after obtaining the minimum number of
votes required to be elected to the pontificate the Pope apparently went
away to pray before accepting.
This piece of information was false, as
confirmed by a number of cardinals, including the Archbishop of New
York, Timothy Dolan.
A statement – completely compatible with the Catechism of the
Catholic Church - regarding the importance of conscience issue gave rise
to many debates and discussions.
Lombardi denied that the decision to
remove the interview from the Vatican website was taken at the request
of the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith,
Gerhard Ludwig Müller.