Pope already hit with waves of misinformation a week into the job

One week into his papacy, Pope Leo XIV has already found himself in the middle of multiple false narratives, much like Pope Francis before him.

A social media post, for example, claims that an attached video shows the new pontiff deliberately snubbing and turning away from the LGBTQ rainbow flag as he greets onlookers at the Vatican.

However, the flag in the video isn’t the LGBTQ flag — it’s the Italian peace flag, first used in 1961, which predates the LGBTQ flag.

We can see that the lettering on the flag, while back to front, says “Pace”, the Italian word for “Peace”, and there’s no indication that Pope Leo purposely turned away from it as he approached.

The original video can be found on the Vatican’s official YouTube channel, which says that the event was an audience between the bishop of Rome and media professionals on 12 May.

Another online rumour suggests that the Pope urged people to be “woke” in a prayer he delivered at an unspecified time.

“Woke means awakened by compassion, guided by truth, humbled by grace,” Pope Leo allegedly said. “Be awake, be loving, be woke.”

However, there’s no evidence he ever made these comments. A Google search yields neither relevant reporting nor official announcements from the Vatican, and other fact-checkers have since reported that the image’s original creator admitted to its fabrication.

There’s been speculation over how Pope Leo will address LGBTQ+ issues and other topics perceived as “woke”, after the late Pope Francis was widely touted for his kinder approach to the LGBTQ+ community compared to his predecessors, his support for immigrants and the poor, and his comments on the climate crisis.

Many are hoping that the new pontiff will continue to nudge the Catholic Church further left when it comes to social issues, following in the what many saw as the more liberal legacy of Pope Francis.

A more dangerous claim alleges that Pope Leo covered up a series of sexual abuse cases committed by a Peruvian priest in 2004, and that he found out and failed to investigate them in 2022 while he was serving as the bishop of Chiclayo.

Cardinal Robert Prevost, as the pope was then known, was also accused of covering up another case of sexual abuse by a priest in Chicago. Yet the Vatican strongly denies all of these claims.

Spanish outlet El País reportsthat the Holy See’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, in charge of religious discipline in the Catholic Church, has fully investigated the matter and found Pope Leo’s conduct “impeccable”.

It also reported that sources close to the matter noted that it was suspicious that the damaging remarks emerged just before the conclave that elected Prevost as Pope Leo.

Pedro Salinas, a Peruvian journalist who has extensively researched sexual abuse accusations in the Catholic Church, has also found that the allegations against the new pontiff are false.

“There’s no documentary evidence or solid testimonies pointing to Pope Leo,” he said.