Video shows Pope at ceremony, not “visiting Vatican embassy in Jakarta”

A video recorded in the Vatican in July 2024 was shared with the false claim that it shows Pope Francis visiting the Holy See's diplomatic mission in Indonesia's capital in August 2024. The claim emerged during the Pope's visit to Jakarta, where he met some religious leaders in Southeast Asia's largest mosque and held mass in Indonesia's largest stadium.

“Mr. Pope Francis visits the Vatican Embassy in Central Jakarta,” read the caption of an Instagram post dated September 4, 2024.

It showed a video of Pope Francis entering a room where cardinals are waiting for him. The Indonesian-language text of the video also repeated the false claim.

The post was shared during the Pope's visit to the world's most populous Muslim country, kicking off his four-country Asia-Pacific tour (archived link).

In Indonesia, he met some religious leaders of the country's six officially recognized religions and held a mass at the Gelora Bung Karno Stadium.

The same video was also shared on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok here and here, reaching more than 130,000 views.

However, the video does not show Pope Francis visiting the Vatican's diplomatic mission – the so-called Apostolic Nunciature – in Jakarta.

Cardinals' meeting in the Vatican

A reverse image search on Google revealed that the original video was uploaded to Vatican News' verified Portuguese-language Instagram account on July 1, 2024 (archived link).

It shows Pope Francis leading a formal meeting of cardinals in the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican. The occasion is the so-called canonization ceremony, in which a person is declared a saint in the Catholic Church.

“During the ordinary public consistory to approve the cause of canonization, the Pope decreed that Blessed Giuseppe Allamano, Manuel Ruiz Lopez and his seven companions Francis, Abdel Moati and Raphael Massabki, Marie-Leonie Paradis and Elena Guerra be inscribed in the Album of Saints on Sunday, October 20, 2024,” the post's caption reads.

Below is a comparison between the clip in the fake post (left) and the original footage in the Vatican News Instagram post (right):

AFP has also debunked other misinformation about the Pope's visit to Indonesia here and here.