Image of priests smoking. Picture source: likealeaf on Threads.
|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Claim: An X user shared a picture of two cardinals taking a smoke and claimed it was during Pope Francis’s burial.
Verdict: False! Our investigation revealed that the picture, dating back to 2013, is unrelated to the pope’s burial.
Full Text
Pope Francis was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from March 13, 2013, until he died on April 21, 2025.
According to traditions, the leader of the Catholic Church is chosen in a highly secretive gathering known as a conclave, which means “with key” in Latin. Cardinals are tasked with picking the next pontiff, and follow an elaborate process that dates back to the Middle Ages.
Following the death of the Pope, several claims have been made online; some true, some false.
An X user, Hon Enos Mp (@djmasafi), shared a picture showing two cardinals smoking during the pope’s burial. The image was captioned “Two cardinals take a smoke break at the Papal Conclave. Vatican City during Pope Francis’ burial.”
Another X account, Lemon @cigarettesummer, posted the same image: “Cigarette summer has now reached the Vatican.”
Reacting to the post, Zippix Nicotine Toothpicks (@ZippixNicotine) wrote, “must be fake. They probably had toothpicks, not cigarettes.”
Another user, Marcel Hâmiliu (@HamtasticVoyage), agreed with the post and wrote, “Oh, that’s how they get the white smoke.”
Since the post went viral on April 28, 2025, it has garnered 3,300,000 views, 92,000 likes, 8,800 retweets and quotes, 4,600 bookmarks and 554 comments.
Given the conflicting reactions to the post and its potential to mislead and spread false narratives about the church, DUBAWA decided to investigate the claim.
Verification
DUBAWA noticed that the phone held by one of the cardinals was a flip phone used predominantly from 2010 to 2014. This suggests that it might be an old post.
So we conducted a reverse image search and saw that the picture had been online since 2013, on Reddit, with the caption, “cardinals taking a smoke break at the 266th Papal conclave in Vatican City (2013)”.
According to TinEye and Microsoft Bing, the image was shared online between 2013 and 2025.
Conclusion
The viral picture of the two cardinals smoking is from 2013, not from Pope Francis’ burial, as posited by the claimant.
