Posts falsely claim Pope Leo XIV snubs LGBTQ flag

Published on May 21, 2025 at 10:56
4 min read
By AFP Brazil, AFP Nigeria
Translation and adaptation Samad UTHMAN

Following Pope Leo XIV’s ascension to the papacy, social media posts have claimed that he snubbed an LGBTQ pride flag waved at him while he walked down a corridor greeting well-wishers. However, the claim is false; the flag, which can be seen on one side of the corridor while the pope is busy greeting people on the other, is Italy’s pacifist emblem, which shares rainbow colours but features a different design to the pride flag. The coloured stripes do not follow in the same order, and it includes the word “pace” in the centre, meaning “peace” in Italian.

“Pope Leo XIV stylishly avoids an LGB-TQ flag while greeting people. Now you know what Elon and Trump were up to,” reads the caption of a Facebook video published on May 13, 2025.

Screenshot showing the false post, taken May 19, 2025

Robert Francis Prevost became Pope Leo XIV on May 8, 2025, after cardinals from around the globe elected him, in less than two days, to be the first US leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics (archived here).

In the 17-second Facebook video, Pope Leo XIV walks down a busy corridor lined with well-wishers on both sides. He greets people on the one side, and then the other, alternating as he walks along. At one point, he walks by a colourful flag held by a person on the right-hand side while he is busy greeting people on the left.

The same video was shared elsewhere on Facebook in English and on X in Portuguese here and here.

However, the flag that the new pope walked by is not a pride flag.

Peace flag

Using Google Lens to conduct reverse image searches on keyframes from the video, AFP Fact Check found a longer original YouTube video from which the 17-second Facebook clip was extracted (archived here).

The original video, published by the state-owned media outlet Vatican News on May 12, 2025, is captioned “Audience with journalists, May 12, 2025—Pope Leo XIV”.

The scene in question can be seen at 40’28’’.

A careful look at the flag reveals letters in the centre, including the letter “A”.

In addition, its colours do not follow the same order as the LGBTQ flag, which begins with the colour red.

In Portuguese posts, some social media users commented that the flag was an Italian peace flag.

A search using the terms “flag” and “peace” on the Vatican News website led to a publication from the official portal of the Holy See that includes a photo of the flag in question and describes it as a “flag of peace” in the caption (archived here and here).

The flag bears the word “pace”, which is Italian for “peace”.

It is widely recognised in Italy and associated with anti-war and pacifist movements (archived here).

The peace flag features seven horizontal stripes arranged from top to bottom: violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red, while the LGBTQ flag has six stripes: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet.