A photo authentically shows a priest pointing a water gun at a baby and its family.
In August 2023, a photo resurfaced on Twitter that purportedly showed a priest pointing a water gun at a baby.
“Drop the wildest Covid-related pic or video you’ve come across!” a Twitter post said on Aug. 8, 2023. “I’ll start with this gem from my collection.” Attached to the tweet was a picture that appeared to show a priest wearing a mask holding a water gun pointed at a baby and their family.
Drop the wildest Covid-related pic or video you’ve come across!
I’ll start with this gem from my collection 🤡 pic.twitter.com/Clc80z3uGX
— Dr. Simon Goddek (@goddeketal) August 9, 2023
We found posts on other social media platforms about the claim, including a Facebook post from May 2020, a YouTube video from May 2020, and a Reddit post from February 2021.
The photo was real. We reached out to the Saint Mark Catholic Church, where the picture was taken, via Facebook and will update this fact check if we hear back.
The Catholic News Agency reported that the priest in the photo was the Rev. Stephen Klasek, who was pastor of two Tennessee parishes, including St. Mark. We found the picture included in a Facebook post from May 2020 on the church’s Facebook page.
The caption attached to the post said:
Saint Mark’s Facebook page is posting this to clarify the photo that has gone viral as we have been receiving inquiries about it. It has garnered almost a million views in Twitter, has been in the news in several websites and memes. It had good and controversial comments.
This is what Fr. Steve said about this: 1) The family had requested for him to do this pose as copied from several posts of priests circulating around the internet. He agreed because he thought it was funny. 2) The water in the water gun is not holy water and was squirted towards the dad and not the baby for humor impact. Bottom line, it was meant to be for fun.
As the Facebook post said, similar photos had gone viral at the time. For example, Buzzfeed News reported in May 2020 that a Detroit priest had squirted holy water at churchgoers during a socially distanced service.
As reputable news publications reported about the picture and we also found it on the church’s Facebook page, we rate the claim True.