> How would you feel if Hawkings were a Christian, and he would take money from the Pope and then wrote a report on how he saw Jesus in the black hole?

The same way I feel about all such claims: if they can't be independently reproduced, they're garbage. The more bizarre the claim, the easier it should be to disprove it. Authors who publish outlandish claims that cannot be substantiated by others will be first disgraced and then, worse, ignored.

Hawking and the pope aren't relevant to your example. All that matters is that someone claims he saw Jesus in a black hole. It's not even clear that such a thing is a falsifiable claim, and if it weren't, it wouldn't be accepted for publication anyway. But even if it took the form of one, it would be immediately disproved and that would be the end of it. It's the claim that's important, not who made it or who paid him to do so.