Fake Pope Quote Posts

One of the more bizarre developments in social media has been the rise in fake quotes from popes appearing online.

One might think that Roman Catholics would be particularly at the forefront of this kind of activity, but that’s not necessarily the case. Anglicans seem to love a good fake pope quote. I’ve seen them posted by an incredible number of people including several senior clerics.

I am bewildered as to why people post things and in doing so say something like “Isn’t it amazing that we’ve got a pope who said…?” and don’t pause for a moment to ask whether it might be the case that someone has just made it up. Incredulity might well be a pathway to common sense.

The sad thing is that there’s plenty of profound things that popes do say that are worth repeating. It seems a terrible shame that Pope Francis might be remembered not for his genius in addressing the Climate Crisis in Laudato Si’ but for a series of invented platitudes about hospital walls.

Particularly puzzling are those, and again, I have senior clerics in my mind, who post these things and then when told that they are not by the pope in question respond by saying that they are going to leave the post up on social media because it sounds like something the pope might have said or that they agree with the sentiments anyway.

I can’t think of a clearer example of bearing false witness than leaving something published that you have claimed to be written by someone when you know that in fact it was not.

But anyway, I have a more entertaining response to this from today than just outraged spluttering on other people’s facebook posts, which is to suggest to anyone desperate for a fake pope quote to post online that they ask ChatGPT to come up with a new one rather than recycling someone else’s.

Here’s how it goes. You open up ChatGPT and you give it this kind of prompt:

write a fake quote from Pope Leo XIV that is about 450 words long. Make it sound vaguely plausible but the message is the everyone is welcome in the church, even those who think they are not. Use the kind of language of the self-help and empowerment movement to suggest that the pope wants to change the church and that he alone has a vision to do this.

And bless it, ChatGPT churns it out beautifully.

There are many who believe the Church is not for them. They whisper to themselves, ‘Surely not me—not with my past, not with my doubts, not with my wounds.’ But I say to you today: the doors of the Church are not narrow—they are wide. They are not guarded by perfection—they are held open by grace.
We must move beyond the old habit of exclusion cloaked in the language of tradition. We must stop drawing lines where Christ drew none. The Church is not a sanctuary for the flawless; it is a refuge for the broken, the confused, the seekers, the scarred. If you feel lost, unsure, uncertain of your worth—you are precisely who Christ called. You belong here.
This is not a time for silence or shadows. It is a time for awakening. Too long have we accepted a Church that feels distant, judgmental, fearful of difference. But the Gospel was never about fear. It was always about radical welcome. About the love that does not check credentials at the door.
I envision a Church reborn—not in doctrine, but in posture. A Church that speaks less about rules and more about renewal. A Church where questions are not threats but invitations. A Church where you do not have to hide who you are to be loved as you are.
This vision is not shared by all. Some will say it is too soft, too open, too modern. But I say it is simply faithful—to the Jesus who touched the unclean, who ate with sinners, who forgave before they asked, and who never once said, ‘Come to me, but only if you’ve already cleaned yourself up.’
I do not seek to dismantle the Church—I seek to return it to its heart. That heart is mercy. That heart is hospitality. That heart is Christ.
If you are gay, divorced, disillusioned, poor, angry, unsure if you even believe anymore—come. If you have been hurt by the Church, forgotten by the Church, judged by the Church—come. If you are full of joy or full of rage—come.
You will not find a perfect community. But you will find a people trying—trying to be more like Christ, one small, stumbling step at a time. That is all any of us can do.
The future of the Church is not behind us in stone and ritual. It is ahead of us—in compassion, in courage, and in the willingness to welcome those who thought there was no place left for them. I have seen this future. And I believe it begins now.”
 
Isn’t that genius? “Not a time for silence or shadows” – completely meaningless and yet exactly the kind of thing that people love posting. I just love “The future of the Church is not behind us in stone and ritual…”. No pope would ever say that. Priests do tend to like a bit of ritual after all and if any pope got near saying that then I’m sure that they could count on those that surround them to prevent them making a fool of themselves and alienating all their clergy.
 
“I envision a Church reborn—not in doctrine, but in posture.” Can you imagine anyone other than perhaps a C of E bishop commenting on the latest draft of Prayers of Love and Faith ever saying anything so absurd? Yet I’ve seen plenty of even sillier fake pope quotes purporting to be the real deal.
 
People do love this kind of thing. And that’s exactly the kind of post that I’ve seen posted and liked and reposted dozens of times in the last few weeks.
 
Might I suggest that we put a stop to it? For as the medieval pope Kelvinius the First said in 1524…
 
Let not thine idle hands inscribe falsehoods in the name of the Holy See, for to speak a lie in the voice of Peter is to forge chains for thine own soul. Be on guard for the truth. For the truth shall set you ChatGPTFree.
 
 
Picture of a Swiss Guard on guard.

The Special Synod on Family Life

pope and romeo and juliet

Something significant is going on in the Vatican this week. A series of conversations has started about how the Roman Catholic Church deals with issues that arise in family life. It is hugely significant because such conversations simply don’t happen very often. Another interesting thing is that it started off with a questionnaire that was sent out to Roman Catholics allowing them the chance to respond to a set of questions with the idea that their responses would inform the bishops who have gone to Rome to have the conversation.

There will always be people who say, “How can it be that a bunch of supposedly celibate men make decisions about family life?” and there’s no escaping from that question in this day and age. However, the idea of consulting the whole church through a questionnaire was revolutionary.

The questionnaire itself was something of a mixed bag. It felt as though various tectonic plates within the Roman Catholic church were grinding together throughout its production. On the one hand it was an attempt to allow lay catholics to comment on their own situation but on the other, the dominant theme was that church teaching doesn’t change, so how can we present it in a better way to the world. It has been clear in the last week that there are enormous forces at work within the Roman Catholic church which are not all moving in the same direction. Some very highly placed leaders in the church have been disagreeing publicly about the way forward, particularly over whether divorced people should be able to receive communion in church.

With these forces at work, what we don’t know is whether there will be an earthquake or not.

This all has huge significance for non-Roman Catholics too. The reason for this is that the RC Church is such an incredible size in the world and the way it describes personal morality is very often a benchmark and indeed something which people presume all the churches sign up to.

I see a lot of Roman Catholics in St Mary’s. Sometimes they are simply visiting out of interest, for example during Open Church times or Doors Open Day. This week, we had a large funeral and lots of Roman Catholics were present both when the coffin was brought into church and at the funeral itself. During these kinds of times lots of conversations open up about some of the areas which the synod in Rome may tackle.

The reason that the Synod on the Family affects all Christians, not merely Roman Catholics is that we are related – marriages, baptisms, deaths all bring me into contact with Roman Catholics on a regular basis. We are in a sense, all family when it comes to the issues under discussion.

A typical conversation goes like this:

RC Visitor – “…but this looks just like a chapel.”

Self – “Yes, and if you came on Sunday you would recognise the service immediately”.

RC Visitor – “Yes, I know, I went to a requiem recently and it was just the same. It was exactly the same – well apart from the music which was much better. It was the same though and I couldn’t believe it.”

Self – “Yes, I know.”

RC Visitor – “So what are the differences then if there’s no difference in the worship?”

Self – “Well there’s a few differences in how we teach people about social issues”

RC Visitor – “Well what do you tell people about how they are to behave”.

Self – “Well, I don’t think we do that. We give people the chance to make their own minds up about things.”

RC Visitor – “Well do you give communion to people who are divorced?”

Self – “Yes, of course we do.”

RC Visitor – “Well that’s what took my sister away from the church, when the priest told her he would like to give her communion but he wasn’t allowed”

Self – “Yes it is a hard discipline.”

RC Visitor – “Can divorced people get married here?”

Self – “Yes, so long as I get the permission of the Bishop. ”

RC Visitor – “Oh, right. Can I give your number to my sister?

Self – “Yes, here’s my card”.

RC Visitor “And do you say abortion is OK too?”

Self – “No, I don’t say abortion is OK but I do think that sometimes it can be the only option and I think women are best placed to make that decision for themselves”

RC Visitor – “And I suppose you can have gays as priests too?”

Self – “I am a gay priest”.

RC Visitor – “We have gay priests too but they can’t say. It isn’t nice for them”.

Self – “And we have priests who are women too.”

RC Visitor “Oh we don’t have them, just nuns. You don’t have nuns.”

Self – “We have nuns”.

And so it goes.

That isn’t particularly an exaggeration – it is common to discuss all those issues within the space of 10 minutes and I know from other clergy that when they get the chance to talk to Roman Catholic folk, these are some of the very first topics that come up in conversation and some of them at least are the topics coming up in Rome this week.

Our prayers should be with the Roman Catholic bishops in Rome as they attend this special Synod on Family Life. The rules of their church cause some ordinary people great misery and heartache, notwithstanding the very best of intentions.

The picture, by the way, is one I took the other week in Verona. I rather like the Pope looking down in benediction on Romeo and Juliet. Not a bad picture to prompt our prayers this week.