The news making the rounds of a purported “Third Vatican Council” at which the Catholic Pontiff, Pope Francis, allegedly put a disclaimer on the Bible’s contents and reportedly said that it does not matter what one believes, has been dismissed as a FRAUD.

In the story, Pope Francis is alleged to have said that hell does not exist, that it does not matter what one believes and that the Biblical story of Adam and Eve is a fable. The story claims that the Pope’s alleged words have led to disunity in the Catholic Church and quotes Nigerian-born Vatican chief, Cardinal Francis Arinze, as berating the Pope over the issue.

Several News Express readers who are Catholics reacted angrily when we published, this morning, an article based on the said claims as submitted by one of our readers, who happens to be a well respected veteran journalist. This prompted us to further investigate the matter, upon which our attention was drawn to a Vatican statement rubbishing the claims.

As a result, News Express has pulled down the story and apologised for unintentionally publishing a reader’s article which was based on falsehood. News Express Publisher Isaac Umunna said: “We feel deep regret for the pain which this article may have caused Catholics. The said article does not reflect the opinion of either this newspaper or its publisher; it was submitted by one of our contributors as an opinion article and published innocently. We hereby retract the said publication and sincerely apologise to all those offended by it. We have since pulled down the article entitled ‘POPE FRANCIS DROPS A BOMB’ as we do not wish to be associated with falsehood in any manner. We wish to assure Catholics of our deep respect for their religion and the Pope. We assure them that we would never deliberately do anything to bring either the Pope or the Catholic Church into disrepute.”

Below is the text of a Vatican statement setting the record straight regarding the purported “Third Vatican Council”:

FALSE STATEMENTS ATTRIBUTED TO POPE FRANCIS

Dear friends, we have been notified by many readers that there are stories currently circulating all over the Internet spreading statements by Pope Francis with regard to a number of issues, concerning the Bible’s content, the relations between religions, the renewal of the Church’s doctrine, and even the calling of an alleged “Third Vatican Council”, which are FALSE. These statements were spread by unknown sources. Therefore, we would like to alert all readers to be careful and not to trust too soon news about the Pope that are not from the Vatican.

There are also many social networks pages that try to put false information in circulation, taking advantage of the fact that it is easy to “throw the stone and hide the hand”.

Many people are also now aware that ALL FACEBOOK PROFILES OF POPE FRANCIS /JORGE MARIA BERGOGLIO ARE NOT OFFICIAL PAGES AND THEY HAVE NOT BEEN AUTHORIZED TO OFFICIALLY REPRESENT THE POPE, THEREFORE THEY SHOULD CLEARLY STATE THEY ARE JUST ‘FAN PAGES’.

We encourage all readers to check the official Vatican media sources for further confirmation of Pope Francis’ statements, or even to check what exactly he said with reference to specific issues.

IF THE STATEMENTS ATTRIBUTED TO THE POPE BY ANY MEDIA AGENCY DO NOT APPEAR IN THE OFFICIAL MEDIA SOURCES OF THE VATICAN, IT MEANS THAT THE INFORMATION THEY REPORT IS NOT TRUE.

Below is a list of the official Vatican media which you should use as valid reference to be sure that any reported statement referred to the Pope is true:

- News.va: a news aggregator portal, it reports the news and information from all the Vatican media in one website, available in five languages: www.news.va

News.va also has a facebook page: www.facebook.com/news.va

- L’Osservatore Romano: www.osservatoreromano.va

- Radio Vaticana: www.radiovaticana.va

- VIS (Vatican Information Service): www.vis.va

- Holy See Press Office:www.vaticanstate.va/content/vaticanstate/en/altre-istituzioni/sala-stampa-santa-sede.html

- Centro Televisivo Vaticano: www.ctv.va

or www.vatican.va/news_services/television/

- Vatican.va: the official website of the Holy See, where you can find the full text of all speeches, homilies and Apostolic documents by the Pope: www.vatican.va

- PopeApp: the official app for smartphones dedicated to the Pope (Copyright News.va)

- @Pontifex: the official Twitter profile of the Pope.

The only official facebook profiles representing the Holy Father and the Vatican are those from News.va and the Vatican media (see the above list of Vatican media).

We would like to thank you all for your kind attention as well as for your notifications and suggestions. Please do share this information as much as possible with your contacts! Thank you very much!

•Photo shows Pope Francis.

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