The media disseminated information that in the third reading in the Vatican, amendments to the Bible were adopted, according to which homosexual relations will no longer be considered sinful. According to media reports, all that remains is for the Pope to sign the document. We decided to check whether this actually happened.

The information appeared on the Israeli Russian-language portal MigNews, on the website of the Lithuanian edition Obzor.lt, as well as on Orthodox portals and in social networks. The media materials said that “the corresponding project was developed back in 2019 under pressure from the LGBT community, but it was only possible to accept it now,” and also quoted a comment from the representative of the papal commission for the improvement of the main Christian document, Henri Castello: “These amendments actually remove representatives of the LGBT community from the action of God’s punishment for the lack of elements of sin.”

To begin with, it is worth noting that the Bible in Christianity is a collection of texts that make up the Holy Scriptures. It consists of texts from the Old and New Testaments and tells about history, starting with the creation of the world and ending with the Revelation of John the Theologian (Apocalypse). At the same time, the text of the Bible did change over the years, but not through “amendments,” but through the inclusion or exclusion of additional texts from it. For example, the Catholic Church in 1546 at the Council of Trent turned on The canonical composition of the Bible includes the so-called deuterocanonical books: the Book of Tobit, the Book of Judith, the Book of the Wisdom of Solomon, the Book of the Wisdom of Jesus, son of Sirach, the Book of the Prophet Baruch with the Epistle of Jeremiah, the First Book of Maccabees and the Second Book of Maccabees. And in 1896 the Orthodox Church excluded The Book of the Prophet Baruch and the Epistle of Jeremiah from the canonical text of the Bible.

The news also said that the amendments were adopted in the third reading. Indeed, in the Russian legislative system, the adoption of a law requires three readings in the State Duma, adoption by the Federation Council, and then the signature of the president. However, significant church decisions accepted at ecumenical councils - meetings of the episcopate, as a result of which decisions of a doctrinal (dogmatic), ecclesiastical-political and judicial-disciplinary nature are made. At the same time, according to the Orthodox version, such councils happened only seven (before the division of the church into Western Catholic and Eastern Orthodox), and for the Catholic one there were even more than 20. In the conditions of the division of churches, holding a council that complies with all canons is impossible. In Catholicism there is also position, according to which, thanks to papal infallibility, what the pontiff utters from the pulpit is considered the general church law. However, such a right took advantage only Pius XII, who proclaimed from the pulpit the dogma of the Ascension of the Blessed Virgin Mary, later confirmed at the Second Vatican Council. Thus, the adoption of significant decisions in the Vatican could be carried out only in two ways: by convening an ecumenical council and making its decision, or by proclaiming approval from the pontiff from the pulpit, and not by the “third reading”.

Already such gross factual errors give reason to doubt the veracity of the news. On the official website of the Vatican, when searching in English, similar news discover failed. The news in Italian that is closest in date of publication and meaning reports that the Pope sent a letter of support to Father James Martin, who is conducting his pastoral work among LGBT people. The publication is dated June 27, 2021, and there is no mention of a “third reading,” “amendments,” or “exclusion of the sinfulness of homosexual relations.” News about such amendments in Russian is also available not found. But in Russian we managed to find original source news - satirical news site "Panorama".

Moreover, in 2020, Pope Francis spoke out in support of the rights of same-sex couples to form civil unions: “Same-sex people have the right to be a family. They are children of God and have the right to a family.” The official Vatican I don't agree with the pontiff: “It is unacceptable to give a blessing to same-sex unions, since marriage is an indissoluble union between a man and a woman, concluded for the birth of a new life.”

Thus, the news about the adoption in the third reading of amendments to the Bible, excluding the sinfulness of homosexual relations, was released by the satirical publication Panorama, and the journalists who disseminated it, apparently, did not bother to check and did not pay attention to the source of the information.