(OSV News) — The scene in the video shared over Instagram is charged with confrontation. Bulletproof-vested and masked U.S. immigration agents, some of them with egg spatter on them, are confronted by a silver-haired Catholic bishop on the steps of a Gothic-looking church.

The prelate, identifiable by his amaranth skullcap, sash, and cassock trim, pushes an advancing agent away while waving a book as his pectoral cross sways around his neck.

“Go! You’re not welcome here!” the bishop thunders, as parishioners cheer him. “Not today, and not in this church! I don’t know what god you worship … but my God is love!”

It’s very dramatic stuff, but it never happened.

If the complete lack of news reports about this incident isn’t one clue, the fact that the same script, word for word, features in numerous other videos with other fake flocks and other simulated shepherds confirms it: It’s an AI-generated deepfake.

But thousands of accompanying comments on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok reveal many viewers were fooled by these videos created through artificial intelligence, and they’re hardly alone. Social media platforms are flooded with counterfeit cinematic social media impersonating Catholic Church leaders, from phony prelates to Pope Leo XIV himself.

And some of it isn’t simply for the sake of “likes,” there are also scam posts that aim to separate sympathetic watchers from their cash.

Priest’s online identity stolen

Father Rafael Capó, vice president for mission and ministry and dean of theology at St. Thomas University in Miami, Florida, knows what it’s like to discover your online identity has been stolen.

“I have had a presence on social media for a long time, evangelizing, especially to young people,” he explained to OSV News. “And because of that, I started getting impersonators trying to get my identity, my role as a priest, and my images, and using that.”

“They would create false profiles and social media; create false images,” he added. “And with that, they would start contacting people who would follow that social media, thinking that it was me.”

Father Capó, a bodybuilder who also evangelizes through fitness, didn’t notice at first. But then the questions came, especially after impersonators began to make monetary appeals.

“I would start getting messages from followers and people on social media asking me, ‘Father, is this you? Did you post this? Did you just ask for this?’ And it became a disturbing trend.”

It also wasn’t easy to fix.

“It was very difficult,” he shared. “It became such a problem that I started contacting the social media companies. They asked me to go ahead with the verification of my profiles. And by verifying my profiles, taking that next step, that started to help.”

Fighting AI fakes in the pew and the classroom

But in an era of ever-multiplying AI-generated fakes and scams, even seasoned influencers like Father Capó can feel like they’re fighting against the tide.

“The problem nowadays is that it is not just impersonating a profile,” he noted. “It’s also creating videos. That takes the whole thing to the next level. And it’s a very complicated matter, although people are also using AI to create videos positively.”

Obviously, not all AI is malevolent, a reality that exploits viewers’ trust.

“It’s taking news, for example, Church news and current issues, and manipulating them in such a way that people get confused if it’s a legit news source,” said Father Capó.

At St. Thomas University, the institution is actively working to address such issues.

“We just approved our own standards for ethical AI,” Father Capó shared.

Deacon John Rogers, vice president of Catholic services at Prenger Solutions Group, a technology and fundraising firm serving more than 100 U.S. and Canadian dioceses, said there are ways the faithful can educate and protect themselves.

First, view only official or well-known Church communications channels.

“You’re looking for, ‘This is the official diocese of such and such account,’ or this coming from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, or this is from an apostolate that I know well,” Deacon Rogers advised.

Spotting the ‘uncanny valley’

Editing cuts, where scenes in a video jump, or something seems off, are another clue.

“That’s what everybody, especially in the digital world, calls ‘the uncanny valley,’ when somebody is close to human, but not close enough,” said Deacon Rogers. “Always just be aware of things that do not feel right to you.”

“And honestly,” he added, “one of the best antidotes is just more spiritual reading. If everybody read five pages of good, solid Church documents a day … you’re equipped to kind of spot these for yourself.”

After waves of Pope Leo XIV deepfakes proliferated online, the monthly email newsletter of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication warned its readers that it has received “dozens” of these reports every day where fake accounts are “increasingly using artificial intelligence to make the Pope say words he never uttered, to portray him in situations he never actually found himself in.”

In a January 24 message for the 60th World Day of Social Communications, Pope Leo acknowledged the issue.

“It is important to educate ourselves and others about how to use AI intentionally,” the pontiff advised, “and in this context to protect our image (photos and audio), our face and our voice, to prevent them from being used in the creation of harmful content and behaviors such as digital fraud, cyberbullying and deepfakes, which violate people’s privacy and intimacy without their consent.”

Deepfakes target prominent Catholic leaders

A small sampling of other prominent Catholic leaders victimized by deepfakes includes Bishop Robert E. Barron of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, known for his Word on Fire apostolate; Cardinal Marc Ouellet, retired prefect of the Vatican Dicastery for Bishops; and popular speaker and author Father Mike Schmitz.

“Antiqua et Nova” (Note on the Relationship Between Artificial Intelligence and Human Intelligence), a 2025 document from the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Dicastery for Culture and Education, was blunt: “AI-generated fake media can gradually undermine the foundations of society.”

Steven Umbrello, managing director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies and editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Technoethics, said the Church’s moral authority is under AI attack.

“For Catholics, this is especially serious because the faith is transmitted not only through ideas but through credible witnesses, via our testimonies. Deepfakes aim straight at that credibility,” he said. “They can make it appear that a pastor endorsed something he never endorsed, or that the Church taught what it never taught.”

“And once doubt is planted,” Umbrello said, “the harm often remains even after a correction. The result is a culture where people assume, ‘I can’t know what’s real,’ which is exactly the posture that bad actors want.”

Truth as the antidote to deepfakes

So both the faithful and the Church must be alert and aware.

“We should be honest when we say that the faithful do not need to become forensic experts, but rather that they need a reliable workflow for verification and a moral norm against spreading unverified claims,” he said.

Umbrello added, “Technically, the Church will need basic safeguards, like official channels that are consistently maintained, and rapid-response clarification when something goes viral.”

Nor should obvious deepfakes be shared, which only amplifies them.

“When Catholics know where to look for truth, then deepfakes lose power,” explained Umbrello.

“Ultimately, deepfakes are a test of whether we will let technology train us into cynicism, or whether we will respond with the virtues of prudence, justice, and charity,” he reflected. “The Church’s authority is moral credibility, and moral credibility is defended by truth, and the patient rebuilding of trust whenever it is attacked.”

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Kimberley Heatherington is an OSV News correspondent. She writes from Virginia.