The website POTUS WDC posted a false story with the bogus headline, “Catholic Archbishop Says Pedophilia Is ‘Spiritual Encounter With God.’”
The quote, which POTUS WDC frankensteined into utter fiction, comes from a press release by the Archbishop of Melbourne Denis Hart last year: “Confession in the Catholic Church is a spiritual encounter with God through the priest.”
The archbishop gained attention for his defense of the confidentiality of confession in the Catholic Church amid calls for priests to report certain confessions to the authorities. His short press release reads:
Clearly, Hart was talking about confession as a spiritual encounter, not pedophilia. The misquote comes across to TWS Fact Check as more of a “blatant lie” than “fake news.”
This incorrect quote was also spread by Neon Nettle, Your News Wire, Soultype, and several other blog sites in February. The rumor was fact-checked at the time but is still appearing on social media, suckering some folks (whom the pope has dubbed “unwilling accomplices”) into the lie .
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