There is a video circulating on Facebook about Pope Francis resigning the Papacy. This is fake news. Here is what I found, or didn’t find on the subject.
This Onion video “news report” of Catholic Pope Francis resigning the papacy is fake news. The Onion is a mix of satire, fake news, and a little bit of the truth. (They have to throw in the truth from time to time to make satire and fake news believable.)
On their About page the Onion claims that it, “enjoys a daily readership of 4.3 trillion.”
Apparently this video surfaced in 2013 see link article with same video and the date of 3/13/13. The Pope began his papacy on 13 March 2013.
The woman in the video says the pope was resigning after only 7 hours as pope. This isn’t a typo so I’ll repeated it, The woman in the video says the pope was resigning after only 7 hours as pope. She also says, “The 76 year old pope.” The pope was born 17 December 1936. That makes him 81 years old.
I went to 3 online Catholic news sources and found nothing on the pope resigning.
I also went to the Associated Press’ International News and CNN World News and found nothing.
Lastly I went to the Vatican News website and found nothing on Pope Francis resigning.
Conclusion: Pope Francis is not resigning the Papacy.
Join the conversation!
We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, vulgarity, profanity, all caps, or discourteous behavior. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain a courteous and useful public environment where we can engage in reasonable discourse.