Fake News: Catholic Church Did NOT Introduce Burka For Altar Servers

Fact Check

  • by: Alan Duke
Fake News: Catholic Church Did NOT Introduce Burka For Altar Servers

Did the Catholic Church announce that it was introducing burkas for altar servers? No, it is a satirical report published by a California website that specializes in social commentary through satire. The claim that the church is planning to add an 11th commandment to the previous 10 handed down by God to Moses is also satire. That commandment purportedly would read: "Thou shalt not lead thy priest into temptation, for it bringeth upon the Holy Church great annoyance and bad publicity." The satire is a commentary on the priest sex abuse controversy enveloping the Catholic Church.

The story originated from an article published on March 11, 2019 titled "Catholic Church introduces burka for altar servers" (archived here) which opened:

Following the recent Vatican abuse summit, the Catholic Church today announced key measures to tackle the issue going forward, including a stipulation that altar servers don the burka. The concept for this full-body covering was borrowed from another major world religion. Proponents hope that using it in the Church will prevent priests from being enticed into sexual assault.

Users on social media only saw this title, description and thumbnail:

Catholic Church introduces burka for altar servers

Following the recent Vatican abuse summit, the Catholic Church today announced key measures to tackle the issue going forward, including a stipulation that altar servers don the burka. The concept for this full-body covering was borrowed from another major world religion. Proponents hope that using it in the Church will prevent priests from being enticed into sexual assault.

The Postillon has a disclaimer on it's FAQ page that reads:

1. Are these true news and stories?
No, everything you can read here is satire and therefore all made-up. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

The site is the English version of the German original der-postillon.com, another well-known satire website.

We wrote about the-postillon.com before, here are our most recent articles that mention the site:

Want to inform others about the accuracy of this story?

See who is sharing it (it might even be your friends...) and leave the link in the comments.:


  Alan Duke

Editor-in-Chief Alan Duke co-founded Lead Stories after ending a 26-year career with CNN, where he mainly covered entertainment, current affairs and politics. Duke closely covered domestic terrorism cases for CNN, including the Oklahoma City federal building bombing, the UNABOMBER and search for Southeast bomber Eric Robert Rudolph. CNN moved Duke to Los Angeles in 2009 to cover the entertainment beat. Duke also co-hosted a daily podcast with former HLN host Nancy Grace, "Crime Stories with Nancy Grace" and hosted the podcast series "Stan Lee's World: His Real Life Battle with Heroes & Villains." You'll also see Duke in many news documentaries, including on the Reelz channel, CNN and HLN.

Read more about or contact Alan Duke

About Us

International Fact-Checking Organization Meta Third-Party Fact Checker

Lead Stories is a fact checking website that is always looking for the latest false, misleading, deceptive or inaccurate stories, videos or images going viral on the internet.
Spotted something? Let us know!.

Lead Stories is a:


@leadstories

Subscribe to our newsletter

* indicates required

Please select all the ways you would like to hear from Lead Stories LLC:

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. For information about our privacy practices, please visit our website.

We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By clicking below to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp's privacy practices here.

Most Read

Most Recent

Share your opinion