Two YouTube videos claimed in their headlines that Pope Francis has revealed a “dark past” of Filipino Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, Vatican’s pro-prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization. These are clickbait.
The misleading videos, published Jan. 10 and 11, bore these headlines, respectively:
- “The Pope Made HUGE Announcement On Cardinal Luis Tagle Dark Past”
- “Pope Francis JUST Reveals Truth About Cardinal Luis Tagle”
A Facebook (FB) user sent one of the posts to our misinformation tip line on FB Messenger for verification.
Part of the 23-minute Jan. 10 video published by YouTube channel United Vision talked about the dismissal in 2022 of top officials working for the Catholic international aid network Caritas Internationalis. The rest of the video talked about Tagle’s “potential” as the pope’s successor.
The dismissal of Caritas officials needs context: Pope Francis’ decree in November 2022 which placed Caritas’ management under a temporary leader was part of revising the aid network’s internal procedures.
His decision came after the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development found deficiencies in Caritas’ management procedures that “affected team spirit and morale.”
Tagle, the president of Caritas at the time, reassured people that the pope’s decree was “not about sexual harassment or sexual abuse” or “mismanagement of money.”
Meanwhile, the Jan. 11 video only compared leadership styles between Tagle and the pope, and talked about Tagle’s rise to key Catholic leadership positions and speculations about Tagle potentially succeeding Pope Francis. There was no talk of a dark history from Tagle.
Apart from its clickbait headline, the second video’s caption also suggested that the pope was issuing an exposé about Tagle: “[T]he pope has finally made the decision to expose Cardinal Luis Tagle. Why has Pope Francis chosen to disclose this at this time?”
Curiously, its caption also carried a disclaimer saying its content “should not be interpreted as factual information.”
Published by YouTube channels United Vision (created on Sept. 17, 2024) and The Prime Expedition (created on June 18, 2024), the misleading videos garnered a total of 991,952 views, 8,088 reactions, and 944 comments.
These videos appeared a day after The Daily Guardian reposted a list of 12 leading cardinal candidates to become Pope, originally created by a group of Catholic journalists and researchers that published The College of Cardinals Report.
