Does a viral clip of a procession consisting of people wearing black pointy hats show Pope Francis' funeral? No, that's not true: The claim first appeared on the internet four days before the scheduled burial of the pontiff. The footage captured members of a religious group in Spain, most likely celebrating the days leading up to Easter, known as Holy Week.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published on X on April 22, 2025. It opened:
As much flack as I got on Easter for believing in the Lost Gospels and gnostic texts which Christians saw as 'heresy.'
Can we talk about how absolutely Satanic this Pope funeral is? From the hats to the upside down crosses...so many conspiracy theories to unwrap in one video. 🧐
This is what it looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot by Lead Stories)
The entry contained a 39-second video that appeared to have been filmed inside a cathedral. It featured people slowly marching in long white robes, black capes and tall, pointy hats covering their faces except for the eyes.
The post reviewed in this fact check implied that the footage authentically captured the pontiff's funeral mass.
That, however, predated the already-announced date of Pope Francis' funeral, which, as of this writing, was scheduled to take place in the Vatican on April 26, 2025 (archived here).
Yet, the claim quickly spread beyond X. For example, it circulated in Hebrew on Telegram (archived here) and in Spanish on YouTube.
The video in question showed a unique identifier: A red cross with a rooster in the center of it on the participant's clothing.
(Source: X screenshot by Lead Stories)
A reverse image search led to a Spanish-language blog (archived here) where a photo showing the same emblem was published with the following caption:
Agrupación del Arrepentimiento de San Pedro.
The Agrupación del Arrepentimiento de San Pedro (archived here) is a group in Cartagena, Spain, whose main purpose is to organize and participate in religious parades in that city during the Holy Week. According to the organization's website (archived here), the cross with the rooster is one emblem used by the female participants.
Photos on the group's website show the rooster insignia on its members during parades in Cartagena:
(Source: sanpedroapostolcartagena.es screenshot taken by Lead Stories)
Pope Francis died on April 21, 2025, in the Vatican, more than 1,210 miles away from Cartagena (archived here).
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