Sunday, April 01, 2018

Francis

David Warren had a good question: if Scalfari persistently misrepresents Francis, why does Francis keep talking with him?

Maybe they're really good friends, or maybe Francis tries to agree with Scalfari as much as he can. Or maybe Francis likes showing off how sophisticated he can be. Or maybe he fumbles his words like a couple of recent presidents we've had.

We all adjust our conversation to our companions. Well, almost all of us. "Know thy audience" is frequently heard around here.

I'm not sure where to look for an accurate appraisal. Most big media outlets are both hostile and bone ignorant, and the Vatican sometimes speaks with many voices. Maybe the Bee had a scoop.

Fortunately I'm not in a position to say what hell is like.(*) We were admonished that heaven is not something we're able to imagine, and probably hell is likewise not imaginable. C.S. Lewis experimented with some annihilation-ist like stories: talking beasts who fail the judgment in The Last Battle revert to animal, and hell in The Great Divorce is persons' shrinking themselves down into nothing. Different reference points may observe different things. Whatever it may be like, we have it on better authority than Francis' that the place/state is real and not part of our originally planned destiny. I'd avoid close investigation. That didn't stop me from writing my own story...


(*) We had to read Huis Clos in French class. My experience tells me that Sartre is dead wrong.

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