Youtube deletes channel of fake Pope Leo sermons
The Holy See updated its website, which records all of the Pope’s speeches, changing the colours of the home page from gold and brown to a pale blue and white background.
YouTube deleted a channel publishing fake AI-generated “sermons” attributed to Pope Leo XIV.
Prior to the channel’s removal on 21 May, “Pope Leo XIV’s Sermons” had displayed 26 separate videos of homilies read aloud in what sounded like the voice of the pontiff. They had attracted 18,000 subscribers and nearly one million views. Every video was generated by artificial intelligence. The most popular, attracting 330,000 views was titled “Pope’s wake up urgent call to all true Christians, Pope Leo XIV Speech”.
“We terminated the channel in question for violating our policies covering spam, deceptive practices, and scams,” Jack Malon, a YouTube spokesperson, told the Catholic news outlet Aleteia. He added that two other channels also carrying AI-generated videos of the new pope had also been deleted.
This came as the Vatican issued a warning against the plethora of AI-generated content on social media claiming to quote Pope Leo XIV. “It is worth remembering – given the circulation on various social media of texts attributed to the new pope without indicating the source – that all of Pope Leo XIV’s speeches, addresses and texts can be consulted in their entirety at vatican.va,” said a Vatican statement.
The Holy See updated its website last week, changing the colours of the home page from gold and brown to a pale blue and white background with a photograph of Pope Leo. It has also introduced new sections on the homepage for photographs and videos of the Pope.
On 27 May, the Vatican also issued the first official stamps of Pope Leo XIV. The four designs – ranging in price from €1.25 to €3.20 – feature photographs from the early days of Leo’s papacy. One depicts him blessing the crowds in St Peter’s Square after his election on 8 May. In another, he is shown smiling in a chapel. A third portrays Leo XIV praying in quiet contemplation.
The first Vatican postage stamp was issued in 1852, but the Holy See only began to produce regular stamps after the Lateran Treaty of 1929 established the Vatican as a sovereign state. Today, the Vatican postal system has 43 employees and 26 yellow post boxes dotted throughout Vatican territory. Anyone unable to visit Vatican City may purchase the stamps online through its post office website www.postevatican.va.
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