Pope Francis looks on as he leads a special audience with pilgrims from Terni's diocese in Paul VI hall at the Vatican
Pope Francis looks on as he leads a special audience with pilgrims from Terni's diocese in Paul VI hall at the Vatican March 20, 2014. REUTERS/Remo Casilli

Pope Francis may be unorthodox in so many ways unlike previous pontiffs. But he is definitely not endorsing a technology which has the potential to be a tool to control mankind and to fulfill scripture's prophecy of the mark of the beast.

The Epoch Times debunked on Friday an article run by satire Web site National Report that the pope supports RFID chip implantation. The hoax article reads: "In a controversial move by the Catholic church, Pope Francis has come out in vocal support of RFID Chip technologies and the extraordinary potential they hold for mankind. The outrage stems from a belief held by many Evangelicals, Fundamentalists and Catholics, that RFID implants are the Mark of the Beast, spoken about in their Holy Book's chapter regarding the end of the world."

The confusion if the National Report article is a hoax or real stems from the Web site's removal of its disclaimer that the site runs satire articles, may use not real names, contains fiction and presumably fake news.

Epoch Times pointed out that after checking, Pope Francis did not issue any statement at all about the RFID chips.

The closest that the Catholic Church has spoken about RFID chips is an article in Catholic Online on April 28 which states that the mark of the beast is not something coming in the future, but a present-day reality ranging from social security cards to driver's licenses to mobile phones and now social media.

The article pointed out that mobile phones have built-in GPS ability, barometers, cameras and microphones that have systems which operate in the background even during a state of inactivity.

"And every time you power up these devices, the first thing they do is 'home' reporting your location and identity," the Web site pointed out.