Pope Francis said that “an ‘infodemic’ is spreading: a distortion of reality based on fear,” as he spoke on January 28 to members of the International Catholic Media Consortium, a group dedicated to “fact-checking” coverage of the Covid epidemic and vaccines.

The Pope thanked the Catholic “fact-checkers” for their effort to combat “an explosion of commentary on falsified if not invented news.” The group has devoted itself to disputing negative information about Covid vaccines.

“The antidote to every type of falsification is to let ourselves be purified by the truth,” the Pope said.