As letters to the editor go, it was certainly out of the ordinary, stretching to more than 2,500 words and not one of them veering on the irate or indignant. But the missive received by Eugenio Scalfari, co-founder and former editor of the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, nonetheless made it into print on Wednesday – on the front page and under the impressively brief byline of "Francesco".
Responding to a series of questions asked in the summer by Scalfari, who describes himself as an interested "non-believer", Pope Francisused his trademark conciliatory tone to discuss the Catholic church's attitude to atheists, urging those who do not share his faith to "abide by their own conscience" and reminding them God's mercy "has no limits".
Expressing the belief that it was important for Christians to engage in "a sincere and rigorous dialogue" with atheists, Francis recalled Scalfari had asked him whether God forgave those "who do not believe and do not seek to believe".Aside from a heavy postal bag, the former Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio occasionally receives rather larger gifts. An Italian priest, Father Renzo Zocca, has given the pontiff his old Renault 4 which, all in white, is suitably papal and has 190,000 miles (300,000km) on the clock. Francis took a spin in it around the Vatican on Saturday.
"The security staff next to me were very concerned because they understood that from now on he'll be going around the Vatican in my car," Zocca told the Catholic magazine Famiglia Cristiana
. "Anyway, I also left him some snow chains in the boot. You never know."
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