This archive report was first published on 10 November 2019.
Published on November 10, 2019, an interview with Pope Francis has caused a stir among Christians, with the Pope suggesting that Jesus did not resurrect in the same body in which he was buried.
According to Italian journalist Eugenio Scalfari, who co-founded and edited the newspaper Repubblica, the Pope made this statement in an interview.
Scalfari quoted the Pope as saying: “He was a man until he was placed in the tomb by the women who recomposed his body. That night, in the tomb, the man disappeared and from that cave he came out in the semblance of a spirit that met the women and the Apostles while still preserving the shadow of the person, and then he definitively disappeared.”
Scalfari's quote is from his new book, The One God and Modern Society, which centers on his interviews with Pope Francis and the late Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini.
The physical resurrection of Jesus Christ after his crucifixion is a fundamental pillar of the Christian faith, as detailed in the New Testament.
Paul the Apostle wrote in 1 Corinthians: “For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures.”
Scalfari, a self-professed atheist and long-time friend of Pope Francis, has previously caused controversy with his interviews with the Pontiff, including claims that the Pope said hell does not exist and that Jesus Christ isn’t God.
The Vatican has stated that Scalfari's accounts are not reliable, as he never records or takes notes of his conversations with the Pope and prefers to write his accounts later from memory.
