You are right.Dodo_David said:Yes, that is a belief of the Roman Catholic Church. Sure, it's a non-falsifiable hypothesis, but what can be done about it?
Anyway, I suspect that the current Pope has simply been misunderstood in regards to the topic of this thread.
The OP was based on a report of an interview with Eugenio Scalfari of La Republica.
According to the latest issue of The Tablet (a Catholic weekly) the Republica interview has been withdrawn from the Vatican website on the grounds that while the interview as reported is broadly reliable, it is less so "on the level of each individual point analysed".
I think it was this interview that I read recently that the reporter took no notes but repoted the interview from memory.