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  • 2018-04-09 (xsd:date)
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  • Did Pope Francis Cancel the Bible and Propose a New Holy Book? (en)
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  • On 2 April 2018, ThereIsNews.com published an article which appears to report shocking news for the Catholic church — Pope Francis had cancelled the Bible, and is proposing the creation of a new holy book: ThereIsNews.com is a humor web site that solely publishes fictional content, and it carries a disclaimer on the web site that reads as follows: The work of fiction may have fooled some readers, as it was published just a few days after several media outlets reported that Pope Francis had denied one of the core tenets of Catholicism — the existence of hell. That rumor, too, was likely either embellished or misreported. Pope Francis does have somewhat of a history of making controversial statements that are seemingly at odds with traditional church teachings: Although this has caused some genuine concern among religious leaders, it has also spawned rumors that the Pope was deliberately trying to undermine the church. This theory was summed up by the conspiracy theorist blog YourNewsWire.com in an article appearing to report that Pope Francis said that his word overruled anything written in the Bible: YourNewsWire.com placed the word overrule in quotes in both their title and opening sentence, but they never provide the actual quote in which Pope Francis allegedly expressed this belief. It also posted several photographs of the pontiff, using them to claim that he purposefully hides the crucifix on his neck while in public because he is ashamed of the religious symbol: These photographs, however, appear to show cherry-picked moments when his cross slips behind his clothing. For example, this web site claimed that Pope Francis hid his cross during a kosher luncheon he hosted in January 2014 for a group of rabbis from Argentina. Although the image they provided appears to be genuine (left), other images from this event show the Pope wearing his cross in full view: Likewise, this web site provided three more images which purportedly showed the pope hiding his cross during a visit to Yad Vashem, Israel's memorial to the victims of the Holocaust, in 2014. And although these images all truly show the Pope with his crucifix partially hidden behind his fascia, this is hardly proof that the Pope is ashamed of his religion. He may have been attempting to be culturally sensitive to his Jewish hosts, or, more likely, these were simply momentary (and wholesome) wardrobe malfunctions, as a number of other photographs from the Pope's trip to Yad Vashem show the crucifix on full display: A video of the Pope's visit to Yad Vashem also shows his cross both in and out of his waistband: The pope never said that he was cancelling the Bible or that his word overruled what was written in the holy book. Furthermore, the photographs purportedly showing the pope hiding his cross from view are merely cherry-picked moments from when the crucifix he wears momentarily slipped behind his clothing. (en)
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