Did Bill Clinton and Pope Francis call for "urgent depopulation" to save the planet? No, that's not true: The pope and former President Clinton had a public conversation in September 2023 during the Clinton Global Initiative 2023 meeting where they spoke about climate change but never discussed "urgent depopulation," according to the official transcripts of the event. The website that…
Does a viral picture prove that the Vatican is "ruled by aliens" or show that "the UFO symbol is almost everywhere" there? No, that's not true: The image does not show the Vatican or its official symbols -- the photo shows a coat of arms seen in a Catholic church in Mexico, and there is no UFO on it. The…
Did Pope Francis, acting on behalf of the World Economics Forum, publicly support euthanasia for "alcoholics, autistic and disabled people" to "help humanity" fight climate change? No, that's not true: The pontiff never said that. Following the Roman Catholic Church's long-established policy, he has condemned euthanasia more than once in his public speeches. Pope Francis does not work for the…
Did CNN produce or air a documentary popularizing a baseless conspiracy theory about three cities controlling the world? No, that's not true: A video clip on social media recycled a fragment from a film that, in turn, reused 1997 footage from CNN that included the network's logo. The claim appeared in a clip published on TikTok on April 28, 2023.…
Did Pope Francis appear walking on the street wearing a high-fashion white puffer coat? No, that's not true: This image is one of a series of four AI-generated images which were posted on the subreddit forum r/midjourney, "an official subreddit for Midjourney related content." Midjourney is an artificial intelligence program that creates images from natural language prompts. The images were…
Did Pope Francis say that pedophiles have a special place in heaven? No, that's not true: There is no record of Pope Francis saying that, as an article in NewsPunch claims. Other quotes in this article are real quotes from the pope that were taken out of context and their meaning reversed. The article was published by NewsPunch on February…
Did Mother Teresa sell children from her shelters in India? No, that's not true: There's no evidence to support that claim, but a nun and another worker at a shelter for unwed mothers run by Mother Teresa's charity were arrested in 2018 and accused of selling babies, The Associated Press and other news organizations reported. The claim appeared in a…
Does a deceased pope get hit in the head with a special hammer to make sure he's actually dead? No, that's not true: The Vatican called the claim a "myth" in 2003. An expert told Lead Stories the ritual has not been performed since possibly 1878 and that the hammer shown in the social media posts is used to open…
Did Pope Benedict ask President Joe Biden not to attend his funeral? No, that's not true: According to a Vatican spokesperson, the wish of the retired head of the Catholic Church was to have a simple ceremony, and there is no evidence that Pope Benedict specifically excluded the U.S. president from the list of attendees. The White House told Lead…
Does a photograph on social media show a young Joseph Ratzinger, the future Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, doing the Nazi salute? No, that's not true: The photo is cropped. The original photograph shows Ratzinger with both arms raised; not just his right one. The cropped image was included in a tweet (archived here) published on December 31, 2022, the date…
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