Pope Francis has appointed Klaus Schwab ‘universal bishop’ and authorised the World Economic Forum to rewrite the Bible.
This is not true. Although the Vatican has published several letters to Mr Schwab, none of them mention appointing him to any position within the church. Claims about the WEF rewriting the Bible have been debunked before.
Many different posts circulating on Facebook claim Pope Francis has appointed the founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum (WEF), Klaus Schwab, a ‘universal bishop’. But there is no evidence the Vatican has appointed Mr Schwab to any position within the church.
Posts often include a link or screenshot to an article published by the website The People’s Voice headlined “Pope Francis Orders Humanity to Follow ‘Universal Bishop’ Klaus Schwab During ‘End Times’”.
Some posts also include a video from The People’s Voice, which begins: “The world has entered the end times according to Pope Francis, who claims this means it’s vital for everyone in the world to submit to World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab and accept his agenda.”
The People’s Voice article claims Pope Francis appointed Mr Schwab “universal bishop” because “his plan to restore nature to its position of primacy in the world order means he is more relevant figure than Jesus Christ in 2024 [sic]”. But there is no evidence to support this claim.
The Vatican has published several letters addressed to Mr Schwab about participating in the WEF’s annual meeting in Davos, but none of them mention appointing him to any position within the church.
Likewise the term “universal bishop” only appears in one document on The Holy See’s website, which is a bulletin about the Special Assembly for the Middle East of the Synod of Bishops in 2010. This document makes no mention of the WEF or Mr Schwab.
The People’s Voice article goes on to say the WEF “has been granted authorization by the pope to rewrite the Holy Bible” and that “the pope wants the new ‘fact-checked’ version of the Bible to be far more political, with a central place for the primacy of nature – and far less about Jesus”.
The People’s Voice made this claim in December 2023 in an article headlined “Pope Francis Authorizes WEF To Rewrite ‘Fact Checked’ Holy Bible”, which was debunked by other fact checkers at the time as baseless.
The article also includes what appears to be a screenshot of the Pope’s X account, with the message: “Klaus Schwab is holier than Jesus Christ.” This appears to be fabricated—Full Fact has checked the Pope’s X account and cannot find the tweet on his timeline.
The People’s Voice website (formerly News Punch) has made several other false claims, which Full Fact and other fact checking organisations have written about previously.
Mr Schwab is also a common subject of online misinformation. We’ve written many fact checks on false or misleading claims about him before.
We have contacted both The People’s Voice and the Vatican for comment, and will update this article if we receive a response.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because there is no evidence Pope Francis has appointed Klaus Schwab ‘universal bishop’.
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