Pope Leo XIV told priests to stop outsourcing their sermons to artificial intelligence and to quit chasing followers on TikTok, delivering the message during a closed-door meeting with clergy from the Diocese of Rome on Feb. 19.

The new pope, elected last May, didn't mince words. AI, he said, "will never be able to share faith." And the pursuit of likes and followers on social media amounts to "an illusion on the internet, on TikTok."

The remarks, reported by Vatican News on Feb. 20, landed as a surprisingly direct challenge to clergy tempted by the path of least resistance in an age of algorithmic shortcuts.

Use It or Lose It

Pope Leo framed the AI question not as a matter of church doctrine but of basic human capacity. The brain, like any muscle, atrophies without use.

"Like all the muscles in the body, if we do not use them, if we do not move them, they die. The brain needs to be used, so our intelligence must also be exercised a little so as not to lose this capacity."

The point isn't technophobia. It's that a homily generated by a large language model is, by definition, a homily without a soul. The priest who lets ChatGPT think hasn't prepared a sermon. He's printed a pamphlet.

"To give a true homily is to share faith."

There's a conservative principle buried in this that extends well beyond the pulpit. Institutions work when the people inside them do the actual work. Delegation to machines isn't efficient when the task requires conviction. You can automate a factory floor. You cannot automate moral authority.

The TikTok Temptation

The pope's warning about social media was equally pointed. He told the assembled priests that if they aren't transmitting the message of Jesus Christ, they need to ask hard questions about what they're really doing, according to the National Catholic Reporter.

"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."

He drew a clean line between authentic ministry and performance. What parishioners actually want from their priests, he argued, isn't polish or viral reach.

"People want to see your faith, your experience of having known and loved Jesus Christ."

This cuts against one of the deepest pathologies of modern institutional life: the assumption that visibility equals impact. Churches, like every other institution drowning in social media strategy, face the temptation to confuse engagement metrics with genuine engagement. A priest with 50,000 TikTok followers and an empty confessional hasn't evangelized. He's entertained.

Priests Who Stay Home

Pope Leo also addressed a quieter problem: clergy retreating from the physical, unglamorous work of ministry. He noted that as the priesthood shrinks and ages, too many parishes have adopted a default posture of offloading responsibility.

"Today, with fewer priests and more elderly, it has become: 'Well, let's send the lay people, they will do it.'"

He acknowledged the value of lay service but was blunt about the limits of that logic.

"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."

He urged priests to bring Communion and the anointing of the sick to ill parishioners personally, calling it a duty that can't simply be delegated. The priest, he said, "must be the first to bear witness to the fact that life has enormous value."

Go Out Into the Streets

The meeting, introduced by Cardinal Baldo Reina, the vicar general of Rome, featured four priests from four age groups posing questions to the pope. The format produced a wide-ranging conversation that touched on outreach to young people, families in crisis, and clerical isolation.

On young people, Pope Leo pushed for initiative over passivity. He told priests to meet people where they are, not wait for them to show up.

"We must go ourselves, we must invite other young people, go out into the streets with them; perhaps offer different ways."

He urged priests to keep their "eyes open" to "very serious crises" in families, including those who are "divorced, remarried" or who "have also experienced abandonment." His counsel was to "know their reality" and "accompany them" while maintaining the distinct witness of the priesthood: "Be close to them in this sense, accompany them, but do not be just one of the young."

He described "the testimony of the priest" as "a model of life."

Clerical Envy and the Best Cook

In one of the lighter moments, Pope Leo tackled what he called "invidia clericalis," or clerical envy, and encouraged priests to build genuine friendships with one another rather than compete.

"Let us not be afraid to knock on another's door, to take the initiative, to say to companions or a group of friends: why don't we meet from time to time to study together, reflect together, have a moment of prayer and then a good lunch? The parish priest with the best cook can invite the others."

It was a human moment in an otherwise substantive address, and it underscored a theme that ran through the entire session: presence matters more than performance. Prayer matters more than productivity metrics. And a priest who cultivates "a life of prayer" and genuine "time spent with the Lord" will always outpreach an algorithm.

Why This Resonates Beyond Rome

Pope Leo took his name in honor of Pope Leo XIII, who wrote the social encyclical Rerum Novarum in the context of the first industrial revolution. That wasn't an accident. The new pope is clearly thinking about how the Church should respond to another technological upheaval, and his answer, at least to his own clergy, is strikingly conservative in the deepest sense of the word: hold on to what is real. Do the work yourself. Be physically present. Don't let the machine replace the man.

In a culture that increasingly treats AI as the answer to every inconvenience, a pope telling priests to think their own thoughts and write their own words is more countercultural than any TikTok could ever be.