A picture showing priests and cardinals gathered around a Satanic-like figure in a black mass is circulating on social media, shared in various contexts.
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00:00An AI-generated image of Vatican devil worship goes viral.
00:09A picture showing priests and cardinals gathered around a satanic-like figure in a black mass
00:14is circulating on social media, shared in various contexts.
00:18It shows men dressed in religious clothing apparently worshipping a statue of Baphomet,
00:23a pagan half-man, half-goat figure often associated with Satanism.
00:27Sometimes the image is shared on social media with captions alleging that it shows Vatican figures worshipping the devil,
00:33while at other times it's shared as a thumbnail for YouTube videos claiming to reveal secrets about the Holy See.
00:39The claims, and even the picture itself, might seem dramatic and outlandish, and that's because they are.
00:44A closer inspection shows that the image has clearly been AI-generated.
00:48While the image might look intricate at first glance, it contains many common clues indicating it's been digitally created.
00:55AI images typically struggle to generate hands, which can be seen here.
00:59The statue has missing or seemingly cut-off fingers.
01:02Another clue comes from people's faces.
01:04Again, AI isn't very good at generating facial features, which explains why the figures in this image don't have any.
01:11Or if they do, they're distorted.
01:13The priests on either side of the altar have oddly-shaped faces,
01:16and the crowds at the back have smudged features and hollowed-out eyes.
01:20The raiment of each figure also looks odd.
01:22The robes of the central cardinal appear to blend into the altar, for example,
01:26while others have missing arms or are standing in impossible positions.
01:30A reverse image search of the picture shows that its use goes back several years,
01:34and is often used to supposedly reveal secrets about the Vatican.
01:38Fake news targeting the Catholic Church is nothing new, and often centres on conspiracy theories.
01:43In fact, anti-Catholic sentiment and false claims that the Vatican is secretly a satanic organisation goes back hundreds of years.
01:50For more fact-checks, take a look at euronews.com.