Patrick Madrid and producer Cyrus are sounding the alarm: a slick 36-minute video making the rounds on YouTube—supposedly a speech from Pope Leo XIV—isn’t real at all. It’s an AI-generated deepfake.
The video kicks off with a dramatic monologue addressed to Burkina Faso’s President Ibrahim Traoré. While the video sounds serious and looks convincing, it’s 100% fabricated. The Vatican Press Office and Vatican News have already debunked it, confirming that the Holy Father never made such a speech. The creators used AI lip-sync tech to make it look eerily real.
Patrick compared the tech to his first time seeing Star Wars in 1977: jaw-dropping at first, but looking back, it was just smoke and mirrors. Today’s AI is next-level, and it’s fooling even sharp-eyed Catholics.
Cyrus echoed the digital anxiety many of us feel: “Even I had to double-check it.” As deepfakes and voice clones become more common, trust is becoming harder to earn and easier to lose.
So what can you do when the digital fog sets in?
Patrick and Cyrus laid out a few spiritual-but-practical steps:
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Stick with verified sources. Vatican News, the official Holy See Press Office, and trusted Catholic media are your go-tos, not random YouTube channels or “prophetic” TikToks.
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Clean your feed. Block or mute accounts that repeatedly share false or inflammatory content.
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Be lovingly skeptical. Just because it looks papal doesn’t mean it’s true. Ask questions. Check the source. Cross-reference. Be holy and discerning.
In a world full of digital smoke and mirrors, Catholics need to cling tighter than ever to what’s real. Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. The Church teaches us to use both reason and faith, and that includes using a little digital common sense.
As Patrick put it, “The truth is always stronger than the lie… but we need to be wise stewards of it.”
