Fact-Check Dispatch: Satanic Vatican conspiracy theories debunked as AI fakes see pope meeting Jesus and Pelé
Pope Francis' death opened the floodgates to masses of AI-generated content and false claims, some of which fuelled conspiracy theories
Pope Francis’ death at the age of 88 was announced on Monday, April 21 – bringing with it floods of tributes online, as well as plenty of questionable content.
The masses of material ranged from AI-generated homages to the popular pope, to fake biopic trailers, to all-out conspiracy theories.
While we would always expect stories of this magnitude to spawn fakes and false claims, the situation was heightened given the perceived secrecy, intrigue and already-existing conspiracy theories that have long surrounded the Vatican and its inner workings.
On top of this, Francis was a leader that in some circles was considered even more controversial than other popes. He was seen as an outspoken progressive figure who was frequently criticised publicly by conservatives both inside and outside the church.
That’s without even mentioning the sectarian divides that have hounded the Christian world stretching back hundreds of years.
All this led to the perfect storm for misinformation in the wake of Pope Francis’ death.
Secret satanic signs and apocalyptic predictions
A massive web of linked conspiracy theories gained prominence in the days after the pope’s death, some involving purported secret signs that the Catholic Church is really satanic, and others about apocalyptic predictions and prophecies involving old societies and orders.
You’d be forgiven for thinking it all sounds utterly bizarre. But for die-hard conspiracy theorists, these beliefs run as deep as any religious creed.
One of the claims involved a statue that is a main feature in the papal audience hall in the Vatican. ‘The Resurrection’, a colossal work in bronze made by Pericle Fazzini, is regularly seen in coverage of the pope as it is right behind his seat in the Paul VI Audience Hall, indoor events for large groups are typically held.
Claims that were already out there before the pope died were themselves resurrected in the past week, saying that the statue featured Jesus surrounded by demons and with a snake coming out of his head.
But that’s not true. The artist himself explained the 1970s piece in various writings about his work. It was partially inspired by the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima, and more widely the looming threat in the 20th Century of nuclear war. The huge statue shows Jesus rising from a bomb crater in the olive groves of the Garden of Gethsemane, surrounded by destruction.
Other theories swirled about the audience hall building itself and St Peter’s Basilica and the adjoining square were designed to look like snakes, the symbol of evil in Christianity going back to the earliest story of Adam and Eve’s temptation by a serpent.
There was no basis for the claims, and those sharing them used images captured with a fish-eye lens to support their argument.
The team at VerificaRTVE probed a number of cases of misinformation, some of which also revolved around the satanic theme. A video posted on X and Instagram showing a screen recording of the arrival of the pope’s coffin at St Peter’s Basilica was accompanied by captions claiming it proved a satanic link.
The RTVE team write: “We then see the doors leading to the steps next to the main altar, which descend to St. Peter's tomb, and the shot closes in on two inverted crosses.”
VerificaRTVE verified the footage, which matched that of the official broadcast of the event. As for the claim, they write: “The inverted crosses that appear in the video are not a satanic symbol, but the Cross of St Peter … According to traditional iconography, Saint Peter was crucified upside down on an inverted cross, at his explicit request, as a demonstration of his inferiority to Christ.”
The upside-down cross actually appears in various Vatican documents, the RTVE fact-checkers write. They point out that they have in recent months also debunked other theories alleging that Pope Francis and his predecessors had propagated “satanic symbols”.
Rayna Breuer, Aldo Sanchez Vera, and Kathrin Wesolowski from Deutsche Welle also investigated a wide range of false and unproven claims that took aim at the pope’s reign, including posts about him congratulating Putin on his election win, calls to euthanise disabled people to curb climate change, and his alleged collaboration with Argentina’s junta in the 70s and 80s.
It would be impossible to unpick the huge web of conspiracy theories that have been circulating for decades about the Vatican and whoever sits at its head. One theory often leads into another, leaving proponents in a rabbit hole that can quickly become entirely detached from reality. Analysing the visual material accompanying these claims and consulting experts can be an important way for fact-checkers to at least challenge some of these baseless suppositions.
AI imagines pope reaching heaven with other deceased celebrities
AI video enthusiasts were busy during the week imagining how it might look to see Pope Francis in heaven. There were also fake movie trailers, including one for a ‘Disney’ production that saw the Argentine pontiff being played by a Black woman.
In one video (archived), he is approached and embraced by Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, with Michael Jackson, Amy Winehouse and Silvio Berlusconi also in the frame. In another clip (archived), the pope flies through the skies with Jesus Christ, takes selfies with him and Mary, and marvels as he is suddenly able to turn water into wine. It ends with an age-rewind that shows Pope Francis as a younger man. The Bob Dylan song ‘Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door’ plays in the background.
Another similar video (archived) seen by tens of millions of people shows Pope Francis in the clouds greeting other beloved celebrities who are dead, such as Princess Diana, Stephen Hawking, Pelé, Mac Miller, Liam Payne, and Robin Williams.
Another aspect of the AI-generated flood of material that emerged after Pope Francis’ death involved the technology’s use to mock up film trailers.
Footage was shared by multiple accounts showing a purported trailer for an upcoming Disney biopic about Pope Francis. In the viral clip, a Black woman plays the pope, and is seen facing crowds in St Peter’s Square and inside a chapel.
It might seem hard to believe that anyone would truly fall for these AI-generated videos, but as commenters pointed out beneath some of them (“my mom is going to think this is real footage”) there exists a large gulf in the public levels of media literacy, which can be particularly pronounced across generational divides. Secondly, keeping an eye on the types of AI-generated content circulating allows experts to monitor the ever-improving quality of these clips, which helps inform our approach in this area.
Pope Francis long-targeted by AI fakes
Pope Francis became famous for his own use of technology, becoming the first pontiff to have an Instagram account and frequently distributing messages to faithful followers via his Pontifex X/Twitter account.
But he frequently fell foul to AI-generated content purporting to show him, both before and after his death.
In one of the first most famous examples of an AI image that tricked the world, he was seen wearing a white puffer jacket instead of his usual cassock in 2023. Although the image itself was relatively harmless and made no wild claims about the pope’s reign over the church, it marked a watershed moment for AI, serving as a warning to the world about what this technology would go on to be capable of.
Despite his protests over the years, the fake news only ramped up when the pontiff became ill in February, prompting speculation about his closeness to death. Derek Bowler from the EBU documented the wave of AI-generated content that purported to show the pope in his hospital bed. No real pictures from the hospital bed were released, and these AI-generated fakes filled the void amid a massive public appetite for the story. Some of the material was found to have been created by Grok, a generative artificial intelligence chatbot developed by xAI, Elon Musk's AI company.
Armêl Balogog writes for franceinfo about instances in which the pope was critical of divisive disinformation and the era of ‘fake news’.
In January of this year, he told a gathering of journalists that too often today, communication “even uses false or artfully distorted information to send messages designed to agitate, provoke or hurt”. Balogog writes how Francis, years earlier, described fake news as “snake-tactics” and said that in the story of Adam and Eve, the “crafty serpent” was the author of the first fake news.
