AI images of Pope Francis wearing pride flag resurface after his death

Pope Francis died of a stroke on April 21, 2025, less than a month after returning home from five weeks in hospital battling double pneumonia (archived here). 

During his 12 years as head of the Catholic Church, the Argentine pontiff was a voice for compassion and peace, reformed the Vatican government and took action against clerical child abuse (archived here and here). 

He also sought to forge a more tolerant and open Catholic Church, including toward LGBTQ members. "If someone is gay and is searching for the Lord and has good will, then who am I to judge him?" he famously said in 2013. His approach at times angered traditionalists, in particular his 2023 decision to authorise blessings of same-sex couples in some cases (archived here and here).

Shortly after his death, Greek social media users began sharing fabricated images of Francis. "The Catholic Pope Francis has died. Perhaps the most devil-possessed and perverted scoundrel of Catholicism in the last 200 years," reads this Facebook post from April 21, 2025, sharing two images of the pontiff with a rainbow flag around his shoulders.

The same photos were shared by other users on Facebook (here and here), X (here) and Instagram (here). "A gullible and irresponsible Pope who embraced highly damaging, for the Western world, postmodern ideologies and political narratives," reads a caption in one of the posts. "The woke culture of the Roman Catholic Church," one user commented. 

The fabricated images first appeared in English-language posts back in 2023, amid a spike in anti-LGBTQ disinformation on social media that coincided with Pride Month celebrations in June of that year. (archived here). 

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Screenshot of a false post on Facebook. Image captured on April 23, 2025

The earliest iterations of the pictures that AFP found online stem from an X account called "Gay Forest." The images were shared on a Facebook page with the same name in April 2023. 

Both posts include the hashtags #midjourneyv5 and #midjourney, referring to a tool that uses AI to fabricate photos.

At the time, AFP reached out to Gay Forest for comment, but a response was not forthcoming.

Visual inconsistencies

There are also visual inconsistencies that confirm the images were fabricated, notably in the colour patterns of the pride flag.

In the image on the left for example, the flag has uneven stripe widths. And while the yellow band is followed by a blue one under the pope's right arm, yellow is followed by green over his left shoulder. In the image on the right too, the stripes do not align symmetrically around the pontiff's shoulders. And the purple stripe abruptly turns into blue near the pope's neck.  

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Screenshot of images circulating on social media, with elements highlighted by AFP. Image captured on April 23, 2025

A closer look at the pendant worn by the pope in the images offers another clue. 

AFP photographer Alberto Pizzoli captured pictures of Pope Francis on June 16, 2023, after the pontiff was hospitalised in Rome for surgery (archived here). The pictures showed Francis in traditional papal wear, including a pectoral cross at the center of his chest.

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Pope Francis is pictured after being discharged from hospital in Rome on June 16, 2023, where he underwent abdominal surgery (AFP / Alberto PIZZOLI)

A close-up of Pope Francis's pectoral cross in the genuine picture shows religious imagery with a corpus (the body of Jesus) and a flock of sheep. These details are lacking in the shared images with the pride flag.

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A close-up of one of the fabricated images shared on social media and claimed to be a real photo of Pope Francis

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Photo of Pope Francis after being discharged from the Gemelli hospital in Rome on June 16, 2023, with elements highlighted by AFP

Pope Francis visited Greece in 2016 and 2021, using the trips to highlight the plight of migrants and try to improve complicated relations with Greece's Orthodox Church. Greece's Catholic community represents only around 1.2 percent of the majority-Orthodox population.

The late pontiff was repeatedly targeted by misinformation during his lifetime, and he regularly featured in AI-generated images that went viral (archived here). AFP debunked numerous of these false claims, including here, here and here. 

Recent AFP fact-checks related to the death of Pope Francis can be found here and here.