My mother is a divorcée. In 90s Ireland, she was demonized by the Catholic Church, and was publicly refused communion by the local priest after she left my (at the time alcoholic and abusive) father. She had a crisis of faith after all that and accepted the "fact" that she was doomed to hell while her five children would go to heaven. She quietly accepted this and from then on refused communion at all events, making up excuses with us none the wiser.
In the mid 2000s, I came out as gay and following that, spurred by the church's cruel treatment of my mother, left the church via apostasy. I had to tell my mother in detail as I was no longer allowed to be buried in a Catholic graveyard. She laminated the letter confirming my leaving of the church from the bishop.
In the mid 2010s she and I campaigned for Marriage Equality together. She told me about her crisis of faith. She also told me how I helped her through the other side of it just by existing. Before she thought all her children would be separated from her after death. But heathen that I was had equally doomed myself to join her. Logically that would make hell lesser. Logically that means the more sinners in hell, the less hellish it is. Therefore hell in its most hellish is empty, and the whole threat is bullshit whether you believe in an afterlife or not.
The fucking POPE saying something like this is huge, and very important for people that carry a burden of Catholic guilt. Good on him, and RIP.
