On Holy Thursday, Pope Francis washed the feet of prisoners at an all-male prison in Rome, Regina Coeli — including two Muslims, an Orthodox Christian and a Buddhist. “Everyone always has the opportunity to change life and one cannot judge,” Francis told the prisoners.

It was the fourth time in his five-year papacy that Francis has celebrated Mass in an Italian jail. But it took place alongside an eye-popping controversy, after the Rome newspaper La Repubblica quoted the pope as saying “A hell does not exist.”

Eugenio Scalfari, 93, one of the newspaper’s founders, said Francis had told him that bad souls are “not punished,” and that the souls of repentant sinners “obtain God’s forgiveness and take their place among the ranks of those who contemplate him, but those who do not repent and cannot be forgiven disappear,” according to one translation.

The reported remarks were seized upon by the pope’s conservative critics, and the Vatican scrambled to tamp down the brewing controversy, issuing a statement that said the conversation had been private and that the article should not be “considered a faithful transcription of the Holy Father’s words.”

Mr. Scalfari is known for not taking notes and for reconstructing lengthy conversations with prominent figures from memory. An outspoken atheist, he has been granted several interviews by Francis, many of them followed by Vatican objections.