Fact-check: Is new pope linked to anarchist zone as viral headline claims?

The moment it became clear that newly elected Pope Leo XIV, formerly Cardinal Robert Prevost, is an American, internet users circulated statements about his political affiliations and social media habits. 

Some of the observations were based in fact. Others were fabricated.

"Wait how woke is this pope," wrote comedian Jeremy Kaplowitz May 8. His X post, which had been viewed about 900,000 times as of mid-afternoon May 9, included a screenshot that appeared to be a headline from The New York Times. 

"Pope Leo XIV was a founding member of the 2020 anarchist Portland autonomous zone known as CHAZ," read the purported headline in the Times’ font style. The subhead read: "Robert Francis Prevost spent much of his time in the early COVID-19 pandemic writing an anarchist zine in Portland describing how to best fist-fight police officers." 

Screenshot from X. 

When commenters asked whether the headline was real, Kaplowitz responded with additional posts insisting it was true. Tagging the New York Times, he also wrote, "CHAZ was in Seattle, not Portland," adding an expletive. 

Given that Kaplowitz is a comedian (although his X profile does not clearly state that), it’s possible he intended the posts as a prank, but he never said so and the image stoked confusion as it spread quickly across social media without clarity or disclaimers.

Times spokesperson Maria Case said, "The New York Times did not publish this headline." 

Searching the Times’ website for the headline returned no results. A more general search for "Pope Leo XIV" returned 45 results as of about 11 a.m. May 9, but none of those articles linked Prevost to an autonomous zone. 

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The headline’s details also don’t add up.

Following George Floyd’s murder in 2020, protesters occupied several blocks in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood as part of a Capitol Hill Occupied Protest, or CHOP, which also was called the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, or CHAZ. The protest began in early June and lasted about three and a half weeks.  

Protesters in Portland, Oregon, tried to establish an autonomous zone similar to the Seattle one in the early hours of June 18, 2020, but local news reports said few protesters stayed overnight and law enforcement dispersed it at dawn. 

Searching the Nexis news database for "Pope Leo XIV" and "autonomous zone" returned no results. A search for "Robert Prevost" and "autonomous zone" also revealed no results. 

We rate claims that a purported headline from The New York Times said "Pope Leo XIV was a founding member of the 2020 anarchist Portland autonomous zone known as CHAZ" False. 

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