Pope Leo XIV Delivers Fiery Sermon Criticizing Trump’s Policies
Claim: Pope Leo XIV gave a "fiery sermon" criticizing U.S. President Donald Trump’s policies after Trump called the pope an "insult to Jesus."
Rating: False
Context: This rumor appears to have originated from content generated by artificial intelligence. While Pope Leo XIV has spoken about leaders who "wage war," and Donald Trump has previously referred to a Texas representative’s support for transgender people as an "insult to Jesus," the claim of a direct confrontation and sermon between the Pope and Trump is unfounded.
By Yogesh
Gogospoiler.com
June 2026
Recent posts circulating online in 2026 have alleged that U.S. President Donald Trump declared Pope Leo XIV an "insult to Jesus." These claims, primarily spread across social media platforms like Facebook, have been accompanied by a supposed "fiery sermon" delivered by Pope Leo XIV in response.
The alleged sermon, as shared in various posts, quotes Pope Leo XIV stating: "The president of the United States just said that I insulted Jesus. You want to know what insults Jesus? Kicking the sick off their healthcare while cutting taxes for billionaires." The sermon continues, "You know what insults Jesus? Deporting the stranger and separating babies from their mothers." It further escalates, accusing Trump’s actions of insulting Jesus by "Bombing innocent school children in Iran and sending our brave men and women off to die in another forever war… Covering up the Epstein files and then refusing to prosecute a single person in them."
However, investigations by Gogospoiler reveal this narrative to be entirely fabricated. The initial source of this claim appears to be a March post from a Facebook account identified as "Pontiff Leo Era." While this account presents itself as a news and media outlet, its content is largely generated by artificial intelligence. Extensive searches across major search engines in March 2026, when this story first surfaced, yielded no credible news reports from reputable sources corroborating Trump’s alleged statement or Pope Leo XIV’s supposed sermon. Had such a significant exchange occurred, prominent news organizations, particularly those focusing on religious affairs like the National Catholic Register, would have undoubtedly covered it extensively.
Further searches conducted in June 2026 also failed to uncover any reliable information supporting these claims. Consequently, this particular rumor has been classified as false.
It is important to note that Pope Leo XIV has, on multiple occasions, advocated for peace in the Middle East and has stated that God rejects the prayers of leaders who engage in "war" and whose "hands are full of blood." This sentiment was notably expressed after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth prayed for "overwhelming violence" against enemies during a Pentagon service. Separately, Donald Trump has indeed made comments regarding Democratic Texas state Rep. James Talarico’s beliefs, including his support for transgender individuals, which Trump characterized as an "insult to Jesus."
Our attempts to contact "Pontiff Leo Era" to verify the origin of this story and understand the reasoning behind fabricating such a narrative without proper disclaimers have so far been unsuccessful. We will provide an update should a response be received.
The creators of such fabricated content often exploit the public’s eagerness to share sensational stories, aiming to generate advertising revenue from external websites to which these posts link. Gogospoiler has previously reported on this business model. Many of the posts spreading this false rumor included links in their comment sections to blog sites promising further details about the supposed sermon. These linked articles, often laden with advertisements, displayed characteristics of AI-generated text, including vague and emotionally charged language devoid of specific details about the alleged sermon’s timing or location – crucial elements that a legitimate news report would include.
Some of these blog posts also employed techniques such as substituting letters with similar-looking characters from other alphabets to hinder automated content indexing by search engines. For instance, one blog post used the Cyrillic letter "п" instead of the Latin letter "n." Tools designed to detect AI-generated text, such as GPTZero, indicated a high degree of confidence that the social media and blog posts concerning this claim were indeed artificially generated. It is worth noting, however, that these AI detection tools are not infallible and should not be solely relied upon for determining media authenticity.
Gogospoiler has previously debunked similar unfounded rumors. For example, in March 2026, we addressed a false claim that Pope Leo XIV had stated, "Do not let power turn leaders into kings," in a purported reference to Donald Trump.