SO the Pope thinks Hell is a real - as in physically existing - place, full of eternal fire and, presumably, pitchfork-wielding demons.
Well, seeing he’s the head of the Catholic church I would have been surprised if he had said anything else.

(Although, after the sight of Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams sitting talking politely to one another recently, my capacity to be surprised has taken a serious beating).
Speaking of Hell, did you read the story about a small massacre that took place in Iraq last week?
You may have missed it among the dozens of reports about killings, rape, disease, disaster and starvation that seem to fill our newspapers these days. But it was there.
And, if your eyes did chance upon it, you probably scanned the headline before hurriedly turning the page, your brain too weary of horror to read another word.
My eyes did chance upon it, on page 29 of that day’s Times, and yes, I nearly turned over, sick to the stomach of hearing about man’s endless inhumanity to man.
But something made me read beyond the headline. Perhaps because it involved children (as a mother, I find I am drawn to children like a safety pin to a magnet).
Anyway, in case you missed it, here is what happened.
On Saturday evening, March 24, 2007, a small group of young boys - both Sunnis and Shias - was playing football on a piece of wasteland in Amel, in southwest Baghdad.
Suddenly two cars pulled up. Four or five men got out, opened the cars’ boots and pulled out an unknown number of machine guns, which they turned on the youngsters.
They killed all nine of them where they stood, before getting back into their cars and driving away, presumably pleased with a job well done.
That, of course, is horrific enough. But what followed, I feel, exacerbates even this.
Hearing the gunfire, people of course came running. But instead of trying to chase the gunmen – or even help their dying children – they looked, ran back to their homes, fetched their own guns and began to shoot each other.
Which, of course, is exactly what the gunmen had wanted to happen.
For two hours Sunnis shot at Shias, Shias shot at Sunnis. Only when they ran out of ammunition did the fighting stop, and the small bodies that had been lying in the dust could be taken away.
Of course this is not a very unusual incident. It certainly won’t be the last time grief combines with hatred to escalate an atrocity.
A ‘minor’ event in the often terrible history of mankind, it nevertheless serves to illustrate one point. The Pope is right, Hell is real – at least for many people walking this earth.
But it’s not demons wielding the pitchforks.

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