Did Did Bill Gates say that the Catholic religion may have to be suspended forever because of the COVID-19 pandemic? No, that's not true: While the billionaire philantrophist has predicted that "mass gatherings" may not return until vaccinations for the novel coronavirus are widespread, he was talking about large gatherings of people at "optional events," not specifically Catholic Mass services. Gates never mentioned Catholicism or any religion in his comments in the interview cited.
The claim originated in an article (archived here) where it was published by FromRome.info on April 5, 2020, under the title "BILL GATES: THE CATHOLIC RELIGION MAY HAVE TO BE SUSPENDED FOR EVER". It opened:
Ominously, at 17:40 in this Video, Bill Gates implies that the Catholic Religion will remain outlawed until all can be certified to have received a vaccine, if even then!
He is talking about suspending the Mass for 18 months or forever!
And not only mass, all professional sporting events, like Football, Baseball, Soccer, Basketball, Hockey etc. etc..
I know there has always been speculation about Bill Gates' name having the ASCII value of 666, but his comments above are more ridiculous, they are diabolic!
Bill Gates is A Demon, what gives him this kind of power? He needs to STFU, he's acting like the lord of light, Satan!
The claim is just one of many that have circulated on social platforms since awareness arose that the COVID-19 was spreading around the world in January, 2020. The Microsoft founder was already a villain for the anti-vaxxer movement because of the work of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation around the world in promoting vaccinations. Their frontline work against COVID-19 made Gates a big target for conspiracy theorists who have claimed that the pandemic is either not real, is overblown, or is a plot by billionaires and the "Deep State" to convert the world for their purposes.
This story is published by a website that calls itself a "journal for Catholics who want to know what is really going on in the Church." Unfortunately, this article that claims Gates is predicting that COVID-19 is the end of the Catholic religion is not "what is really going on."
Gates did an extended interview about his foundations work on the COVID-19 pandemic on The CBS This Morning show April 2, 2020. He said the world is in "uncharted territory" as health officials and leaders try to "minimize the pain" to the economy while trying to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus. Nowhere in the interview does Gates mention the Catholic religion or the possibility is could be "suspended forever."
Even the issue of once you get the case numbers down, there's a lot of dialogue between our foundation experts and the government now, but what does opening up look like. You know, which activities have, like schools, have such benefit and can be done in a way that the risk of transmission is very low and which activities like mass gatherings may be in a certain sense more optional and so until you're widely vaccinated, those may not come back at all.
Gates never mentioned "forever" shutdowns. He predicted that U.S. society could start easing the "stay at home" strategies in late May or June "for places that do the shutdown well."
And then you can get it to a low enough level that the ability to test and trace contacts of the remaining people with be very, very high, and so some degree of opening up is possible. I've said six to 10 weeks, but again every week as we look as those numbers, it will help us see how much longer we'll have to be in this really extreme mode where we're not out and mixing around.
You can watch his interview here. It will start at the point Gates addresses these questions:
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