No, this video doesn’t show the Pope calling the Catholic Church ‘the mother of harlots’

Pope Francis is the subject of yet another altered video, this time in which he supposedly reveals his secret agenda to deceive and control the world.

The video was shared on Facebook in early January and is entitled “The Real Truth About the Vatican and the Jesuit Priests”. It’s been shared almost 20,000 times.

The post text says it’s “The Pope’s Confession to the World” and asks viewers to share it far and wide so that everyone can “open their eyes”.

In the video, we see the Pope speak briefly in English, before he switches to Italian, complete with English subtitles.

According to the subtitles, he then reveals his secret agenda to unite people into a single world religion.

“That way I control them better,” the Pope says, as per the captions.

The video shows him making bizarre claims about the Church and Christianity, saying that Catholic leaders have changed God’s law “big time”.

If that wasn’t shocking enough, he also supposedly slams Christians for watching The Hobbit, Game of Thrones and the Lego Movie, because they can only serve one master.

However, none of this is true, because the subtitles are completely made up.

Here are just some examples: At 2:47, they have the Pope saying that he wants everyone to worship him.

But that’s not true. He is actually talking about “peccati”, the Italian word for sins.

What he really says is: “Una lunga strada di peccato comunitario” – “a long road of sins we all shared in”.

Then at 5:14, the subtitles have the Pope saying that the Bible calls the Catholic Church the “mother of harlots”.

Again, this isn’t true. Instead, the Pope says: “Facciamo crescere la nostalgia perché questo ci spingerà a trovarci abbracciarci e lodare Gesu Cristo come l’unico signore della storia.”

In English, he’s asking Christians to find and embrace each other, and worship Jesus as the only Lord of History.

Even if the final product is quite crude, these sorts of videos give insight into the methods that disinformation spreaders use to push their agenda, so it’s good to keep an eye out.

So where exactly did this video of the Pope come from?

A reverse image search shows us it’s from 2014 and really deals with the Pope’s message on Christian unity.

Reports from that time say the video was filmed on an iPhone for a Pentecostal conference in the US.

Most importantly, there’s no mention of a secret agenda or forbidden films – only Christian unity and love.

A common target for misinformation

The Pope is a recurring victim of fake news and misinformation, especially with the recent explosion of AI.

A seemingly real photo of the Bishop of Rome wearing a long, white puffer jacket went viral in March last year, with fact checkers quick to denounce it as an AI-generated image.

More recently, false claims circulated on the internet that Pope Francis had invented and was wearing an “LGBT cross”. The item was actually a multi-coloured cross given to him as a gift by the Latin American Youth Ministry.