No, Pope Francis did not defend Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s comments about God

This article is more than one year old.
Published on July 10, 2018 at 19:00
Updated on July 13, 2018 at 10:38
1 min read
By AFP Philippines

An online report claimed that Pope Francis defended Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s comments about God. This came shortly after Duterte called God “stupid”. The Vatican denies the Pope made any such comments, and an extensive online search of the pontiff’s transcripts show he did not say those words.

Duterte sparked controversy in his largely Catholic nation when he called God "stupid".

This report appeared online shortly after claiming the Pope had “defended… Duterte on recent comments about God”.

The report contained specific quotes claiming to be from the Pope on June 26, including this one: “I see no problem with President Duterte’s words”.

Speaking to an AFP journalist in Rome, Vatican spokesperson Greg Burke said denied the Pope made the comments that were attributed to the pontiff in the report.

An extensive search online also shows there is no public record of the Pope making any of the purported quotes.

The search included statements are on the Vatican news site, its YouTube channel and the Holy See's Twitter account, as well as the Pope’s speeches and homilies.

The website that posted the report is also falsely giving the appearance of being part of the British Broadcast Corporation.

It calls itself BBC-RADIO on its home page and its url includes radio-bbc. The real BBC’s main website is at www.bbc.com and its radio programmes are at https://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/.

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