Did Pope Francis authorize the World Economic Forum to rewrite a fact checked version of the Holy Bible, and post about it on social media? No, that's not true: The social media post allegedly made by Pope Francis is fake, and there is no evidence of such an authorization reported on the Vatican website, the WEF website, or from credible news sources. An unnamed "WEF insider" is the foundation of the claim which appeared first from The People's Voice, a website notorious for publishing fake news and that carries a disclaimer about reliability and accuracy.
The article (archived here) was published by The People's Voice on December 24, 2023, under the title "Pope Francis Authorizes WEF To Rewrite 'Fact Checked' Holy Bible". It opened:
The World Economic Forum has been granted authorization by Pope Francis to rewrite the Holy Bible, according to a WEF insider who reveals the pope wants the new "fact-checked" version of the Bible to be far more political, with a central place for the primacy of nature, and far less about God.
This is how the article appeared at the time of writing:
(Image source: thepeoplesvoice.tv screenshot taken on Wed Dec 27 15:03:49 2023 UTC)
The article continues:
Pope Francis has already declared that Klaus Schwab is more important than Jesus Christ and now he is determined to dismantle Christianity from the inside and replace God's word with the demonic vision of the global elite.
Pope Francis' decision has caused a storm in the Vatican, but should we really be surprised by his support for the elite's New World Order? As an Agenda Contributor at the WEF, Pope Francis is fluent in blasphemy and is actively working to subvert the church and Christianity across the world.
According to The People's Voice, the source of this claim is an unnamed "WEF insider." Other than this article and copycat versions of it, there is no credible evidence that a WEF insider spoke to the press about any authorization to rewrite the Bible. It is also improbable that the WEF would be tasked with this, as the Vatican has a Pontifical Biblical Comission, which would be tasked with this if it were requested by the pope. The committee meets annually to discuss a given topic and produce documents with their conclusions.
Lead Stories has already debunked the claim that Pope Francis declared Klaus Schwab as more important than Jesus Christ, a claim which appeared in an October 13, 2023, article from The People's Voice. That article from The People's Voice (archived here) includes the same method of circular sourcing as seen in this instance -- where statements The People's Voice reported were sourced back to their own earlier, fabricated reporting. The article also employs a fabricated image of a fake post on X. The image of the phony post says:
Pope Francis
@Pontifex
Klaus Schwab is the way, the truth, and the life.
This December 24, 2023, article about the fact checked Bible also contains a falsified X post. Neither of these are real. Advanced searches (here and here) of the @Pontifex account on X bring up no results for either caption. The caption in the more recent phony post says:
Pope Francis
@Pontifex
Mininformation in The Holy Bible must be fact checked and erased.
At the time of writing, a search on the Vatican website (archived here) for the terms "WEF Bible Fact Checked" returned no results, A site-specific Google search (archived here) of the WEF website for "'Fact checked' Holy Bible site:weforum.org" returned no results. A Google search (archived here) using the Boolean operators '"Fact checked" AND "Holy Bible" AND "World Economic Forum"' returned only results that were spun from The People's Voice article.
The People's Voice has a lengthy record of publishing false stories in the past. It describes itself as a resource "comprised of various web pages operated by Fact Checked Limited," but it has nothing to do with fact checking.
As of this writing, its website contained a liability disclaimer, saying:
FACT CHECKED LIMITED AND/OR ITS SUPPLIERS MAKE NO REPRESENTATIONS ABOUT THE SUITABILITY, RELIABILITY, AVAILABILITY, TIMELINESS, AND ACCURACY OF THE INFORMATION, SOFTWARE, PRODUCTS, SERVICES AND RELATED GRAPHICS CONTAINED ON THE SITE FOR ANY PURPOSE. TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, ALL SUCH INFORMATION, SOFTWARE, PRODUCTS, SERVICES AND RELATED GRAPHICS ARE PROVIDED 'AS IS' WITHOUT WARRANTY OR CONDITION OF ANY KIND.
Additional Lead Stories fact checks debunking false claims from The People's Voice can be found here.
Other Lead Stories articles related to Pope Francis are here.
