Pope Leo XIV tells priests to avoid AI for sermon writing

Pope Leo XIV holds his weekly general audience in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican, Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026.

Pope Leo XIV reminded priests in an open dialogue in Rome last week that “the brain needs to be used,” and advised against using AI to write sermons.

“Like a all the muscles in the body, if we do not use them, if we do not move them, they die,” Pope Leo told the clergy of the Diocese of Rome, according to a report from Vatican News.

“The brain needs to be used, so our intelligence must also be exercised a little so as not to lose this capacity.”

Pope Leo also told priests that “people want to see your faith, your experience of having known and loved Jesus Christ,” and advised against falling for the “temptation” to use artificial intelligence to prepare homilies.

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To live “a life of prayer,” Pope Leo added that time spent with God is important, warning against “the routine of reciting the breviary as quickly as possible.”

His Holiness encouraged his audience to use the internet and social media to spread the gospel, rather than looking for likes and followers.

“It is not you: if we are not transmitting the message of Jesus Christ, perhaps we are mistaken, and we must reflect very carefully and humbly about who we are and what we are doing,” Leo said, according to Vatican News.

“Today, with fewer priests and more elderly, it has become: ‘Well, let’s send the lay people, they will do it.’ It is a beautiful service that lay people provide… But that does not mean that the priest can stay at home watching things on the internet while others are visiting,” he said.

Young people ‘live in isolation‘

A priest ordained by Pope Leo last May asked him how priests should support young people in the modern world.

The Holy Father responded by saying young people can benefit from “a human experience of friendship,” Vatican News reported, adding that young people today “live in isolation, in incredible loneliness.”

The Pope said the priest should keep their eyes open and watch out for struggling youth, Vatican news reported, highlighting abandonment, “absent parents,” and parents who are divorced or remarried.

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“Be close to them in this sense, accompany them, but do not be just one of the young.”

The Pope went on to criticize smartphones and lament the loneliness that the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns affected.

“They live a kind of distance from others, a coldness, without knowing the richness, the value of truly human relationships,” the Pope said about young people.