Pope Leo XIV has called on Catholic organisations to embed a direct feed of official Vatican news on their websites to combat the rising spread of AI-generated content.
According to Vatican News, the Holy See’s official news outlet, the pontiff sent letters to bishops inviting parishes, dioceses, and Catholic associations to integrate the feed via a widget. The tool will deliver continuously updated official videos, speeches, announcements, texts, and stories from Vatican sources in 40 languages.
In his letter, Pope Leo described the feed as a “tool of evangelisation” and a way for communities to “constantly obtain information from the primary source.”
The move follows a surge of AI-generated content on social media following Pope Leo’s May 2025 election. An AFP investigation identified dozens of YouTube and TikTok accounts posting fabricated videos and recordings attributed to the pope. One Spanish-language TikTok video claiming to show the pope preaching on “the value of adoring women” received 9.6 million views, while another, marked as AI but still misleading, was watched 32.9 million times.
Andrea Tornielli, editorial director of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication, said the initiative “can serve to combat the phenomenon of fake news by allowing immediate access to the original source of news and texts.”
