Yesterday, the Drudge Report ran the following headline: “Pope Francis Antichrist? Stand on Islam, capitalism, New World Order fuel chatter….”
Matt Drudge linked to a post on the matter by Jennifer LeClaire, the Charisma news editor who issues “prophetic” warnings about how gays are possessed by demons and will work with Satan to ban straight marriage.
LeClaire cited a report about the Pope trying to merge Islam and Christianity from a site, washingtonpost.com.co — not the Washington Post’s actual website — that she admits seems untrustworthy:
Protestant feathers really got ruffled when the washingtonpost.com.co and others falsely reported that Francis said the Quran and Holy Bible are the same:
"Jesus Christ, Mohammed, Jehovah, Allah. These are all names employed to describe an entity that is distinctly the same across the world. For centuries, blood has been needlessly shed because of the desire to segregate our faiths. This, however, should be the very concept which unites us as people, as nations, and as a world bound by faith. Together, we can bring about an unprecedented age of peace, all we need to achieve such a state is respect each others beliefs, for we are all children of God regardless of the name we choose to address him by. We can accomplish miraculous things in the world by merging our faiths, and the time for such a movement is now. No longer shall we slaughter our neighbors over differences in reference to their God."
Although it seems unlikely that the pope actually said that (I could not independently confirm it from mainstream media sources, only Internet rags that tend to publish misleading information) the fact that so many Christians took it as truth without a second blink is telling. He's said and done enough other shocking things to make this statement believable in the ears of many believers.
Could Francis be the final pope before Christ's return? Could he be the Antichrist? Is he the False Prophet? The chatter continues.
And no, Francis did not make the remarks, as that story comes from the National Report, which like washingtonpost.com.co is a fake news outlet. Other Religious Right websites like the Christian Post and BarbWire also fell for the fake story.
There it is: LeClaire cites a fake story, admits that it came from “Internet rags that tend to publish misleading information,” but uses it since “the fact that so many Christians took it as truth without a second blink is telling,” and the Drudge Report announces to its readers that Pope Francis may be the Antichrist.
