Pope Leo XIV announced 15 massive reforms “set to change the Catholic Church forever” in July 2025.
A rumor that circulated online in July 2025 claimed Pope Leo XIV had announced 15 major reforms for the Roman Catholic Church.
For example, on July 19, 2025, a Facebook user posted (archived) about the rumor and said, “Today Pope Leo announced ’15 reforms that will shock you!’ Full story on YouTube. To me this is a breath of fresh air about to flow through Mother Church, and I welcome it with open arms.”
(Matt Lynch on Facebook)
Other social media users (archived) shared the same claim, including links to YouTube videos promoting the rumor. One such video had more than 160,000 views, as of this writing. According to the story in the videos, the pope preached to Catholics about “the urgent need for sacred silence and true reverence, why the Eucharist must return to the center of Catholic life, the future of priestly formation, catechesis, and moral clarity,” and “why the Church can no longer remain silent on cultural decay” among other talking points.
Snopes readers also searched the website to try to determine whether there was any truth to the story.
However, this rumor was false.
Searches of Bing, DuckDuckGo, Google and Yahoo found no credible news media outlets reporting on the pope’s alleged reforms. Prominent news media outlets would have widely reported this rumor if true.
There were some reports of the pope’s plans for reform from Catholic news outlets.
According to The Tablet, which describes itself as a Catholic weekly journal, the pope planned to announce reforms for the Roman Curia, the administrative body that assists the pope. In addition, Vatican News, “the news portal of the Holy See,” reported the pope discussed reform for the monks of the Vallumbrosan Congregation of the Order of Saint Benedict.
However, neither of these credible reports of reform was mentioned in the aforementioned videos.
Rather, the person or people who authored the story fabricated the entire tale as one of dozens of false stories about Pope Leo XIV generated using artificial intelligence. A variety of Catholic-themed YouTube channels have shared similar videos, all of them labeled as featuring “altered or synthetic content” with “sound or visuals were significantly edited or digitally generated.”
Further, another video featured similar claims about reform stemming from Bishop Robert Barron rather than Pope Leo XIV. The channel that posted the Barron video similarly had dozens of AI-generated videos about the bishop.
Snopes reached out to the Vatican for comment on these videos and will update this article if we receive a response.
One of the YouTube videos listed the alleged reforms in its description, which read:
Reform 1: Silence and Sacred Awe Restored
Reform 2: Return of the Tabernacle and Eucharistic Centrality
Reform 3: Liturgical Beauty and Reverence Revived
Reform 4: Purification of Clergy and Leadership
Reform 5: Moral Clarity in a World of Confusion
Reform 6: Reclaiming Catholic Identity with Boldness
Reform 7: Rebuilding the Walls of Catechesis
Reform 8: Restoring the Dignity of the Priesthood
Reform 9: Holiness Over Influence
Reform 10: Financial Transparency and Stewardship
Reform 11: Global Synodality with Spiritual Authority
Reform 12: Confronting Secularism Without Fear
Reform 13: Evangelization as the Church’s Heartbeat
Reform 14: Rediscovering the Power of Redemptive Suffering
Reform 15: Crying Out for the Holy Spirit Anew
For further reading, Snopes previously reported on a story claiming Pope Leo XIV took a tumble down a set of stairs and a rumor that he said U.S. Vice President JD Vance “flip-flops faster than pages in the Bible.”