Vatican Battles Wave of AI Deepfakes Targeting Pope Leo XIV

Oct 15, 2025: Videos of Pope Leo XIV making surprising statements are spreading rapidly across social media — but none of them are real. The Vatican is now fighting to contain the surge of fake, AI-generated videos that falsely depict the pontiff speaking on a wide range of topics.

The Vatican’s communications team said it has reported hundreds of accounts, mainly on YouTube, for posting such videos, known as deepfakes, since the start of Pope Leo’s pontificate. Yet, new content keeps appearing as fast as the old ones are taken down.

“We are witnessing the exponential proliferation of a series of YouTube channels with fake videos, all similar to one another, some speaking in the voice of Leo XIV, others in that of his translators, still others in the third person. All use artificial intelligence to make the pope say things he never said,” the Dicastery for Communication said in a statement to CNA.

A search for “Pope Leo” on YouTube shows dozens of fake videos portraying him making statements that range from the plausible, like reflections on the Eucharist, to the improbable, such as announcing his resignation. While many have only a few hundred views, some have gone viral. One 25-minute video claiming the pope had broken his silence on Charlie Kirk’s murder gained over 445,000 views within a week.

Vatican Urges Media Awareness

Pope Leo himself recently shared an example of such confusion. In an interview with journalist Elise Ann Allen, he recalled his surprise when a friend asked if he was all right after seeing AI-generated images of him falling down the stairs outside St Peter’s Basilica. The images, which drew attention from the fact-checking website Snopes, were “so good that they thought it was me,” Leo said.

In August, the Vatican’s communications team warned about the growing number of deepfakes in its monthly newsletter and urged readers to report suspicious posts and videos.

“Unfortunately, our dicastery receives dozens of reports every day about fake accounts that use the pope’s image and voice in a very realistic way, increasingly using artificial intelligence to make the pope say words he never uttered, to portray him in situations he never actually found himself in,” the newsletter said.

“Much of our time is spent reporting, silencing, and requesting the removal of these accounts,” it added. “Given the sheer volume of fake material, it is impossible to publicly refute each and every one of them.”

The Dicastery for Communication told CNA that the Vatican is not only reporting fake accounts but also “working to raise our audience’s awareness of this new phenomenon. We believe it is essential to invest in media literacy.”

It also reminded readers to rely on verified sources: “If it is not there, it is most probably a fake.”

Deepfake Media on the Rise

One of the earliest viral deepfakes appeared soon after Pope Leo’s election, seemingly showing him reading a statement denouncing colonialism and praising Burkina Faso’s interim president, Captain Ibrahim Traoré, who came to power in a 2022 coup. CNA and Vatican News published fact-checks warning readers of the false information. The 36-minute video, posted in May, received at least a million views before YouTube deleted the account.

The term “deepfake,” coined less than a decade ago, refers to videos, images, or audio recordings digitally altered to show people doing or saying things they never actually did. Pope Leo is not the first pontiff targeted by such fabrications. In 2015, TV host Ellen DeGeneres aired a clip of Pope Francis seemingly performing a table trick during Mass, and in 2023, an image of Francis wearing a long white puffer coat went viral.

As technology advances to create ever more realistic images, many unsuspecting viewers find it difficult to tell truth from fabrication.

Courtesy: CNA