(ZENIT News / Seoul, November 27, 2025) – South Korea’s Catholic bishops have issued an unusually stern warning not to trust all the faces and sermons of bishops that are circulating online. Behind the gentle rhythm of a well-produced video clip, they say, may be neither the bishop nor the church’s teachings, but an algorithm trained to imitate both.
Their warning, released in mid-November, marks the strongest intervention yet by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Korea (CBCK) regarding the use of artificial intelligence in religious media. The bishops say a growing number of online channels are producing videos that present opinions, speculation, and even historical fabrications as authoritative statements by church leaders. Some of these clips use images of real bishops taken from diocesan websites and news media, with faces and voices digitally altered to create the illusion of official announcements.
It is the pastoral implications, not just the technical maneuvers, that are most troubling to church leaders. The CBCK warns that these videos are misleading the faithful, undermining trust within the Catholic community and “eroding the Church’s public authority.” In other words, the problem is not just misinformation, but distortions in church relations themselves. When believers are unable to distinguish between authentic teaching and synthetic imitation, the foundations of pastoral leadership begin to waver.
This phenomenon is not limited to domestic debates in South Korea. The AI-generated content included a fabricated speech attributed to Pope Leo XIV, a hoax that circulated widely in English and Spanish and caused hesitation even among experienced journalists and church officials abroad. CBCK highlights these examples to illustrate how doctored religious content, once created, can quickly spread across languages and borders.
Legal concerns further complicate pastoral issues. Under Korean copyright law, altering an individual’s photos or videos without permission violates that individual’s rights to reproduction, public transmission, and derivative works. Penalties can be severe, with up to 5 years in prison or fines up to 50 million won. Separate criminal liability applies if the manipulated content is used to defame the person depicted or to mislead the public. The bishops’ statement highlights that many AI-produced videos appear to completely violate these protections.
Their recommendations to Catholics are clear and rely only on official sources such as the Vatican Press Office, diocesan communications, and accredited Catholic media (such as ZENIT). They warn that any material circulating outside of these channels is “likely” to have been altered or fabricated. The aim is not to stifle religious engagement online, but to anchor it in a reliable reference point at a time when synthetic content is proliferating at an unprecedented rate.
The adoption of generative AI in South Korea is expanding dramatically. According to government data cited by Yonhap News, about one-third of all internet users in the country will be experimenting with systems such as ChatGPT by 2024, nearly double the rate from the previous year. While this rapid adoption fosters innovation, it also creates fertile ground for exploitation in sensitive areas such as religion, where the authority of a single image or phrase can shape the perceptions of millions of people.
The CBCK’s warning therefore comes as a cultural diagnosis as well as a pastoral plea. This reflects the church’s concern that in the age of deepfakes and voice cloning, the line between authentic sermons and algorithmic fiction is blurring faster than safeguards can be built. But it is also an invitation for Catholics, and society more broadly, to adopt new habits of insight, one in which authenticity is no longer assumed by the mere presence of a familiar cassock on screen.
The digital landscape may evolve, but the obligation to speak honestly and listen wisely remains the same.
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