Which reputable fact-checks addressed viral claims about Pope Leo XIV’s alleged reforms to confession in 2025?
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Executive summary
Multiple reputable fact-checkers and Catholic outlets investigated and debunked viral claims in mid-2025 that Pope Leo XIV had replaced private confession with communal penance or “decriminalised sin,” with Snopes, DW, CatholicConnect and several Catholic news sites documenting the fabrication and the use of AI-generated media to spread it [1] [2] [3] [4].
1. The viral claim that prompted scrutiny
A series of videos and posts in July 2025 circulated a list of “15 reforms” attributed to Pope Leo XIV that included the specific claim that the sacrament of confession had been replaced by communal penance services and something described as the “decriminalisation of sin,” a formulation repeated in multiple viral clips and reports [4] [5].
2. Snopes: a flagship fact-check dismantling the narrative
Snopes published a detailed fact check in July 2025 that directly addressed the broader “15 reforms” rumor and treated the items — including the claim about replacing confession — as part of a fabricated narrative circulating online, framing the story as misinformation rather than an authentic papal act [1].
3. DW and the broader misinformation context
Deutsche Welle’s fact-check unit contextualized the disinformation surge around Pope Leo XIV, documenting a pattern of AI-generated deepfakes, fabricated messages and viral manipulations that targeted the new pontiff since his election and noting that the Vatican itself had warned about fake messages circulating online [2].
4. Catholic outlets and more targeted rebuttals
Catholic-focused fact checks and reporting—such as CatholicConnect’s review of the viral video and The Catholic Herald’s reporting on the clip and its specific list of 15 alleged changes—examined each claimed reform and explicitly called out the “confession replaced by communal penance” line as false or a distortion of Church teaching and practice [3] [4] [5].
5. How the fact-checks rebutted the confession claim
The fact-checking pieces combined forensic signals (AI-generated voices and fabricated endorsements), doctrinal checks (noting that the sacrament of Reconciliation remained unchanged and that the Church does not use the phrase “decriminalisation of sin”), and sourcing failures (no official Vatican document or reliable statement supporting the 15-point list), to conclude the claim was false or misleading [3] [4] [1] [5].
6. Media framing, Vatican signals and the limits of the record
Mainstream fact-checkers and Catholic outlets framed the videos as disinformation rather than as reporting on actual policy changes, and DW reported the Vatican warning about fakes—however, the sources assembled do not include a single, formal Vatican denial of the specific “15 reforms” document in the excerpts provided here, so the record in these items is dominated by debunking and contextual reporting rather than by publication of a Vatican text explicitly labeled “this is false” in the cited pages [2] [1] [3] [4].
7. Takeaway and what readers should watch for next
Authoritative debunking by Snopes and major outlets like DW and Catholic reporting outlets demonstrates that the confession-reform claim was part of a manufactured narrative amplified with AI tools and fake endorsements, but continued vigilance is necessary because the same channels that created those fakes have continued to produce manipulated clips and invented papal statements [1] [2] [3] [4].