The current pope is no stranger to controversy as he has opposed historic Roman Catholic doctrine and teachings on many fronts. He has openly affirmed that Catholics and Muslims worship the same God and teaches that God loves “diversity of religions.” He appointed a pro-LGBT activist to oversee the Catholic educations system. He conducted a mass for gay Catholics. He conducted a weird plant-worship ritual during the Amazon synod just last week that included homosexuals. And he’s been on a Marxist mission while declaring that it’s “an honor” to be attacked by Americans.

Now, he reportedly has denied the deity of Christ in an interview. The following is a report about an interview the pope had with an atheist, Eugenio Scalfari.

RORATE CÆLI — First, the actual declarations, as reported by Francis’ favorite journalist, Eugenio Scalfari, published in today’s edition of La Repubblica (available online since yesterday):

“Those who, as it has happened many times with me, have had the luck of meeting him and speaking to him with the greatest cultural intimacy, know that pope Francis conceives Christ as Jesus of Nazareth, man, not God incarnate. Once incarnate, Jesus stops being a God and becomes a man until his death on the cross.
[…]
“When I had the chance of discussing these sentences, pope Francis told me: ‘They are the proven proof that Jesus of Nazareth, once having become a man, was, though a man of exceptional virtues, not at all a God.'”

(Main excerpts: the original page is behind a paywall)

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Now, obviously, as it has often happened with Francis’ informal interviews with Eugenio Scalfari, some will try to deny the veracity of what Scalfari, a seasoned journalist, affirms.

Let us just recall, for the record of events, that there is no reason to doubt its general accuracy. We are way past the time of doubting the general accuracy of the Scalfari quotes.

Not now, that the papal interviews to Scalfari have been published on the Vatican website, that they have been occasionally published by the Vatican publishing house (LEV) itself – for instance, as part of the book to the right.