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NOPE
Low reported severity Media Coverage

AI-altered video showed Pope Leo XIV giving an address to Burkina Faso's leader that he never gave; Vatican News disowned it and AFP found AI audio

In May 2025, days after his election, a video circulated on YouTube, Facebook and X in which Pope Leo XIV appears to read an English-language address praising Burkina Faso's military leader, Captain Ibrahim Traoré. The Holy See's Vatican News service published an article on 21 May saying the speech had been created with artificial intelligence and falsely attributed to the Pope, and that footage from his 12 May audience with journalists had been morphed so that his lips matched AI-generated words. AFP Fact Check traced the footage to the same press audience, where the Pope spoke in Italian and did not mention Africa or Traoré, and reported that an audio forensic tool gave a 99 percent probability that the audio was AI-generated. CNA reported in September 2025 that the video received at least a million views before YouTube terminated the account that posted it, and that the Vatican's communications office spends much of its time reporting accounts that post AI videos of the Pope. The YouTube channel's description, as AFP reports, called the video a work of fiction.

AI system
Unidentified video tool
Occurred
May 2025
Reported
21 May 2025
Event location
Unknown
What the AI did
Depicted or impersonated the person
Reported harm
Reputational Harm
Whose AI use
Someone else’s AI use
Setting
Public life
Evidence
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 3 sources
9 claims: 1 documented, 3 corroborated, 5 reported. 3 open questions
People reported harmed
1 person

AI system as recorded: An AI-altered video: footage of Pope Leo XIV's 12 May 2025 audience with journalists, with his lip movements morphed to match AI-generated English words, per Vatican News and AFP Fact Check; the tool and its maker are not established

What Happened

The video. Vatican News reported on 21 May 2025 that a video of about 36 minutes had been uploaded to YouTube on the account Pan African Dreams, in which Pope Leo XIV appears to deliver an English-language message to Burkina Faso's President Ibrahim Traoré, beginning by addressing him as a son of African soil and defender of his people. AFP Fact Check describes a 17-minute version posted on Facebook on 15 May 2025, reports that the clip circulated on X and Facebook accounts in Kenya, South Africa and Nigeria, and says Pan African Dreams posted it on YouTube on 17 May.

The AI attribution. Vatican News states that the speech was created with artificial intelligence, that it was produced using footage from the Pope's audience with journalists on 12 May, and that a morphing technique made the movement of his lips match the AI-generated words. AFP Fact Check found by reverse image search that the original clip was the 12 May press conference, at which the Pope spoke in Italian and did not mention Africa or Traoré, noted that the Pope appears to mispronounce Traoré's name in two different ways seconds apart, and reported that the audio forensic tool Loccus.ai gave a 99 percent probability that the audio was generated with an AI tool. AFP also notes that the lip movements matched the audio and that it found no visual inconsistencies in the Pope's appearance. The tool used and the maker are not established.

The response. Vatican News, the Holy See's news service, published its article stating that the words were falsely attributed to the Pope and pointing readers to the official texts of his speeches; AFP reports that the Vatican media department denied that the Pope received a letter from Burkina Faso or delivered an address responding to Traoré. CNA reported on 25 September 2025 that the video received at least a million views before YouTube terminated the account that posted it, and quoted the Dicastery for Communication as saying it had reported hundreds of accounts posting AI videos of the Pope and that much of its time is spent reporting and requesting the removal of such accounts.

Qualifications. AFP reports that the YouTube channel's description called the video a work of fiction inspired by Traoré's life and that the upload was identified as synthetic content. The sources give different lengths for the YouTube and Facebook versions and do not establish when the first version was posted. No statement by the Pope himself about this video is reported in the sources read.

Reported harm

A video altered with AI depicted Pope Leo XIV delivering a political address to Burkina Faso's military leader that he never gave; the Holy See's Vatican News service publicly disowned it, and CNA reports that YouTube later terminated the posting account.

Outcome

Unknown

Vatican News published an article on 21 May 2025 stating that the address was falsely attributed to the Pope. CNA reported on 25 September 2025 that YouTube terminated the account that posted the video. No legal step concerning this video is reported in the sources read.

What remains unknown

  • Who made the video and with which tool.
  • When the first version was posted: AFP dates a Facebook post 15 May 2025 and the YouTube upload 17 May, and the sources give different lengths for the versions.
  • Whether the Pope or the Holy See took any step beyond the Vatican News article and reports to platforms, and when YouTube terminated the account.

What the evidence supports

AI involvement: supported. Vatican News states that the speech was created with artificial intelligence from footage of the Pope's 12 May 2025 audience with journalists, with his lips morphed to match AI-generated words, and AFP Fact Check independently traced the footage to that audience, found the Pope had spoken Italian and not mentioned Traoré, and reported a 99 percent AI-generation probability for the audio from a forensic tool. That generated depiction of the Pope praising Traoré is what the Vatican's news service disowned as falsely attributed. The tool and maker are not established.

9 claims: 1 documented, 3 corroborated, 5 reported. What the statuses mean

Corroborated A video depicted Pope Leo XIV delivering an English-language address to Burkina Faso's President Ibrahim Traoré that the Pope never gave.

Causal attribution. none

  • vaticannews.va(opens in new tab) supports · English
    A 36-minute speech in English, created with artificial intelligence, has been uploaded to YouTube, falsely attributing to Pope Leo XIV words for Ibrahim Traoré, President of Burkina Faso.
  • factcheck.afp.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    The pope addressed journalists in Italian, not English, as portrayed in the altered clip.
Corroborated The video was posted on the YouTube channel Pan African Dreams.

Causal attribution. none

Corroborated The video was made from footage of the Pope's 12 May 2025 audience with journalists, altered with AI so that his lips matched words he did not say.

Causal attribution. none

  • vaticannews.va(opens in new tab) supports · English
    produced using footage from Pope Leo XIV’s audience with journalists on Monday, May 12. ... A “morphing” technique was used—that is, transforming the image so that the movement of the lips matches the AI-generated words.
  • factcheck.afp.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    a video of the pope’s first press conference at the Vatican was altered using artificial intelligence (AI) tools. ... the original clip was from a press conference held on May 12, 2025
Reported AFP Fact Check ran the audio through an audio forensic tool, which gave a 99 percent probability that the audio was generated with an AI tool.

Causal attribution. none

  • factcheck.afp.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    AFP Fact Check extracted the audio from the altered clip and ran it through Loccus.ai – an audio tool that looks for specific forensic traces left by voice generators. The result showed a 99 percent probability that the audio was generated with an AI tool.
Documented The Holy See's Vatican News service published an article stating that the address was created with AI and falsely attributed to the Pope.

Causal attribution. reported

  • vaticannews.va(opens in new tab) supports · English
    falsely attributing to Pope Leo XIV words for Ibrahim Traoré, President of Burkina Faso. ... This is how a supposed English-language message attributed to the Pope and created with artificial intelligence begins.
  • factcheck.afp.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    The Vatican media department has also denied that the Pope received a letter from Burkina Faso or delivered a public address responding to Traore
Reported The video received at least a million views before YouTube terminated the account that posted it.

Causal attribution. none

  • ewtnnews.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    The 36-minute video, posted shortly after the pope’s election in May, received at least a million views before YouTube terminated the account that posted it.
Reported The Vatican's Dicastery for Communication said it had reported hundreds of accounts posting AI videos of the Pope and that much of its time is spent reporting and requesting their removal.

Causal attribution. none

  • ewtnnews.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    The Vatican’s communications team said it has reported hundreds of accounts, mostly on YouTube, posting fake, AI-created videos — called deepfakes — of Pope Leo since the start of his pontificate. ... “Much of our time is spent reporting, silencing, and requesting the removal of these accounts,” the message continued.
Reported The YouTube channel's description called the video a work of fiction, and the upload was identified as synthetic content.

Causal attribution. none

  • factcheck.afp.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    was identified as synthetic content that was digitally generated. The owners of the YouTube account also included a disclaimer. It reads: “This video is a work of fiction inspired by the life of IBRAHIM TRAORÉ.
Reported A 17-minute version was posted on Facebook on 15 May 2025 and the clip circulated on X and Facebook accounts in Kenya, South Africa and Nigeria.

Causal attribution. none

  • factcheck.afp.com(opens in new tab) supports · English
    The video, published on May 15, 2025, shows the pope giving an address while holding two pieces of paper. ... at the beginning of the 17-minute clip ... The video appeared on X and Facebook accounts in Kenya, South Africa, and Nigeria.

Sources

3 sources inspected. Sources that repeat one account do not corroborate each other.

How the sources were read, and where the events happened

Read in English by the research agent (an AI) on 2026-10-25; no translation was needed. HTTP 200; Vatican News article dated 21 May 2025 (datePublished in the page). Applies to s1.

Read in English by the research agent (an AI) on 2026-10-25; no translation was needed. Direct fetch HTTP 403; read from an Internet Archive capture (HTTP 200). AFP article dated 30 May 2025. Applies to s2.

Read in English by the research agent (an AI) on 2026-10-25; no translation was needed. HTTP 200; EWTN News publishing a CNA report by its Rome correspondent dated 25 Sep 2025, quoting the Dicastery for Communication. Applies to s3.

Event countries: Unknown. Affected-person countries: Unknown. Court countries: Unknown.

The video was posted on YouTube and, per AFP, circulated from X and Facebook accounts in Kenya, South Africa and Nigeria; where it was made or first posted is not established, so no event country is recorded. The depicted person is the head of the Catholic Church and no country is recorded for him. No court proceeding is reported.

Reviewed for publication 2026-10-25: Published as a core case (depicted_or_impersonated): Vatican News and AFP Fact Check each describe the video as footage of the Pope's 12 May 2025 press audience altered with AI so that he appears to praise Burkina Faso's leader, AFP reports a forensic audio result, and the Holy See's news service publicly disowned the address as falsely attributed. The channel's fiction disclaimer is recorded.

People described

Pope Leo XIV, head of the Catholic Church, depicted in a fabricated video delivering a political address praising Burkina Faso's military leader that he never gave

People reported harmed in this case

1 person

0 AI participants · 1 other person harmed

One counted person: Pope Leo XIV, who is depicted and whose news service publicly disowned the video. Traoré is addressed in the video but not depicted. Views, shares and commenters are not counted.

Counted once within this case. The same person may appear in other cases. This count does not establish AI causation.

Tags

#video_generation#public_figures#social_media

Cite this case

Compiled per our published methodology: verification statuses, sourcing standards, and corrections process.

APA

NOPE. (2026). AI-altered video showed Pope Leo XIV giving an address to Burkina Faso's leader that he never gave; Vatican News disowned it and AFP found AI audio. AI incidents. https://nope.net/incidents/2025-youtube-ai-video-of-pope-leo-xiv-addressing-burkina-faso-leader-disowned-by-vatican-news

BibTeX

@misc{2025_youtube_ai_video_of_pope_leo_xiv_addressing_burkina_faso_leader_disowned_by_vatican_news,
  title = {AI-altered video showed Pope Leo XIV giving an address to Burkina Faso's leader that he never gave; Vatican News disowned it and AFP found AI audio},
  author = {NOPE},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {AI incidents},
  url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2025-youtube-ai-video-of-pope-leo-xiv-addressing-burkina-faso-leader-disowned-by-vatican-news}
}

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