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| - A rumor that The Guardian, a U.K. newspaper, published an op-ed titled "The next Pope must be Muslim or there will be violence on the streets of Europe" circulated online in late April 2025. For example, one X user posted (archived) a screenshot of the alleged column on April 22.
Variations of the claim appeared elsewhere on X (archived) and on Facebook (archived).
Some readers seemed to take the screenshot at face value. However, there was no evidence from (archived) credible (archived) sources (archived) that Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, the writer credited with the alleged op-ed, wrote it or that The Guardian actually published it.
The rumor about the alleged Guardian column originated with the @grauniadmeme X account, which describes its output as satirical in nature. The page's full name is "The Grauniad Official Parody" and its bio states: "Wrongthink, Newspeak, Thoughtcrime from the Fiction Department at the Ministry of Truth. Both satire and parody."
The page posted (archived) the screenshot on April 21, 2025, which also featured a misspelled The Guardian logo in the top right corner. The logo appears as "The Grauniad," which is an anagram of The Guardian. The X account regularly posts screenshots of fake Guardian articles.
The fictional story spread as the Catholic Church prepared to choose a new pope following the death of Pope Francis, aged 88, on April 21, 2025.
The fake opinion piece was nowhere to be found on Alibhai-Brown's X profile around April 21, 2025 — the publication date shown in the screenshot — though she did repost (archived) another article she wrote for the British newspaper on April 22. The satirical piece also did not appear on Alibhai-Brown's author page on The Guardian's website — in fact, according to this page, Alibhai-Brown had not written for The Guardian since 2016.
Additionally, Alibhai-Brown's other opinion pieces for The Guardian did not have her picture in the byline and her author photo was different from the one seen in the @grauniadmeme's post. The picture that the X account used appeared to be a real headshot of Alibhai-Brown that she used for other engagements, though not with The Guardian.
Snopes has addressed multiple claims about Pope Francis in the past, including the assertion that he endorsed U.S. President Donald Trump in 2016 and doctored footage that claimed to show the pontiff slapping away Trump's hand.
For background, here is why we alert readers to rumors created by sources that call their output humorous or satirical.
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