Vatican City, Jan 3, 2017 / 14:10 pm
Widely shared quotes attributed to Pope Francis, in which he advocates for a merging of the religions of Christianity and Islam, have been debunked by the Vatican as fake.
One of the quotes falsely attributed to Francis states: "Jesus Christ, Mohammed, Jehovah, Allah. These are all names employed to describe an entity that is distinctly the same across the world. For centuries, blood has been needlessly shed because of the desire to segregate our faiths."
Another false quote states: "We can accomplish miraculous things in the world by merging our faiths, and the time for such a movement is now."
Vatican spokesman Greg Burke told the Associated Press that the quotes are "invented."