In March 2026, posts on social media claimed that Pope Leo XIV had unexpectedly started a livestream to inform his congregation that he received a threatening message from a powerful politician.
For instance, a post on Facebook (archived) from March 22 read, "POPE LEO XIV GOES LIVE AT 3 A.M. WITH AN URGENT MESSAGE 'Tonight I received a message — and it was sent to silence me.'"
While posts spreading the claim did not explicitly name the politician, they often included images of U.S. President Donald Trump.
We first used search engines such as Bing, DuckDuckGo, Google and Yahoo to locate possible evidence from credible sources about the Pope's supposed statement. If the story were true, journalists with reputable news outlets, such as The Associated Press or Reuters, would have widely reported on it. That was not the case.
The rumor was fictional. It originated from Facebook accounts and blog pages that use artificial intelligence tools to create inspiring or shocking stories about public figures. Therefore, we've rated this claim false.
Creators of such content capitalize on social media users' willingness to believe and share the made-up stories, profiting from advertising revenue on external websites to which the posts link. (We have previously reported on the business strategy.)
In this case, the rumor's language was almost identical to two separate claims with similar origins that Snopes previously debunked. Additionally, the fact-checking website Lead Stories published an article in December 2025 noting countless identical claims targeting 30 different individuals.
The Facebook users spreading the claim about Pope Leo may have shared similar rumors in the past, or seen the success of previous posts and reshared the same language with a different person at the center to capitalize on their momentum.
We contacted a manager of the Guided By Grace Facebook page, which posted the earliest example of the rumor we could find, to ask if it had created the false story about Pope Leo and, if so, why it had not included a disclaimer noting its inauthenticity. We will update this story if we receive a response.
Many posts spreading the false claim included links in the comments to articles on unreliable blogs claiming to be news sites. These blogs generally post an inordinate number of articles, with vague descriptions and dramatic wording typical of AI-generated content.
Snopes usually runs the text of such articles and posts through GPTZero, an AI-detection tool. But the ability to highlight body text from one of the blog posts had been disabled in a likely attempt to circumvent fact-checking efforts.
We checked the text anyway by manually retyping the first five paragraphs into GPTZero. The tool determined with 100% certainty that the article was AI-generated. It also determined with 76% certainty that the Facebook posts' captions were AI-generated.
Let us note here: These types of AI detection tools are fallible. Snopes cautions people against using them for definitive answers on media's authenticity without supporting evidence.
Another common feature of the blogs is substituting certain characters of the Latin alphabet for non-Latin characters (generally "n" and "u" for the Cyrillic "п" and Greek "υ"), likely an attempt to avoid moderation or ad restrictions.
As previously mentioned, Snopes has debunked two separate but nearly identical claims about late-night TV host Stephen Colbert and U.S. figure skater Ilia Malinin. We've also checked several untrue rumors claiming Pope Leo has fought with Trump over the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran.