In this Sunday, Jan. 26, 2014 file photo, a dove that was freed by children with Pope Francis during his Angelus prayer is attacked by a black crow in St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican. The bird was able to escape its attacker and flew away, but a recent social media post falsely claimed the bird was killed in front of thousands of spectators. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP/Gregorio Borgia, File
In this Sunday, Jan. 26, 2014 file photo, a dove that was freed by children with Pope Francis during his Angelus prayer is attacked by a black crow in St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican. The bird was able to escape its attacker and flew away, but a recent social media post falsely claimed the bird was killed in front of thousands of spectators. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP/Gregorio Borgia, File
A viral social media post claims two doves released by Pope Francis in 2014 as a symbol of peace were immediately killed by two other birds in front of a crowd of thousands. This is false. Though there was a dove-releasing event at the Vatican in 2014 and they were attacked, the doves were not killed and the Pope was not the one who released them.
An , formerly known as Twitter, claims that in 2014, the Pope released two doves into “Vatican Square†as a symbol of peace for Ukraine. The post claims both doves were “immediately and randomly killed in front of THOUSANDS of people, one by a seagull and one by a crow.â€
As of July 8, the X post had 2.5 million views, 5,800 shares and 60,000 likes.
Rating: False
A community note on the X post says the doves were not killed in the attack, but escaped, though it’s not known what happened to them afterward. It links to an from Jan. 6, 2014, about the incident.
The central claim of the X post that the birds were immediately killed in front of the crowd is untrue. According to the article, the doves were attacked by a seagull and a crow right after they were released from an open window of the Apostolic Palace. One dove lost some feathers as it broke free from the gull, while the crow “pecked repeatedly†at the other dove.
However, the article said it “was not clear what happened to the doves as they flew off."
Before the doves were released, Pope Francis appealed for peace in Ukraine, where anti-government protesters had died, The Associated Press reported.
Two other details in the X post are also inaccurate. The Associated Press reports that the doves were released by children standing alongside the Pope, not by the Pope himself.
As well, the square is called St. Peter’s Square, not “Vatican Square.â€
The X post is accompanied by four photos, three of which are in a 10-photo gallery at the top of the article on the CBC website. The first photo shows the two children releasing the doves. Two photos show the attack, one with the seagull attacking a dove and the other of the crow.
The fourth photo, which shows the crow flying at a dove with its beak open, is not in the gallery. However, it is also an Associated Press photo that multiple other news outlets used in their own coverage of the incident, .
In a about the incident posted to the On Demand News YouTube account, the children are shown releasing the doves, which fly immediately out of the camera’s view. It’s not clear how quickly after the release the other birds attacked, as the story doesn’t have video of the attack.
It’s not the first time this kind of incident has happened. According to , in 2005 Pope John Paul II began a yearly January tradition of children releasing doves from a window to promote world peace. In 2013, Pope Benedict XVI released doves at a Holocaust remembrance event and they were attacked by a seagull. that one of the doves was pinned against a window by the bird.
Since 2015, the Vatican doesn’t release doves anymore. that after the 2014 attack, animal rights groups appealed to the Pope to end the practice.
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Note to readers: This story was updated on July 15, 2024, to correct a typo in the headline. The word "claims" was changed to "claim."
