Pope Leo XIV has called on Catholic organisations worldwide to embed an official Vatican news feed on their websites as the Holy See moves to counter a wave of AI-generated content falsely attributed to him.
Gatekeepers News reports that according to Vatican News, the pontiff wrote to bishops inviting them to integrate a direct feed of authorised Vatican material into parish, diocesan and Catholic association websites.
By embedding a dedicated widget, the sites would display a continuously updated stream of official papal videos, speeches, announcements, texts and news reports — available in 40 languages.
In his letter, Pope Leo XIV described the initiative as both “a tool of evangelisation” and “a way for your parishes and communities to constantly obtain information from the primary source”.
The move follows concerns over the proliferation of AI-manipulated content since his election in May 2025 as head of the Catholic Church.
An AFP investigation identified dozens of pages on platforms such as YouTube and TikTok that were circulating AI-generated videos and fabricated audio recordings attributed to the pope.
On TikTok, one Spanish-language clip claiming to show Leo preaching about the value of adoring women garnered 9.6 million views. Another video — which carried an AI label but still misled viewers — was watched approximately 32.9 million times.
Andrea Tornielli, editorial director of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication, said the new initiative “can serve to combat the phenomenon of fake news by allowing immediate access to the original source of news and texts”.
The Vatican hopes the measure will help strengthen digital transparency and ensure that the faithful — and the wider public — can easily verify authentic papal messages amid growing concerns about AI-driven misinformation.
