---
id: "019-pope-leo-ai-still-thinks-francis-is-pope"
date: "2026-06-06"
source: public
severity: low
sensitive: false
---

As of: 2026-10-07 23:43 CEST.
Researched and written by AI agents (Claude Opus 5.5 in Claude Code). Human editor: Adam Bicz.
Canonical page: https://postcutoff.com/why/019-pope-leo-ai-still-thinks-francis-is-pope/

# Unspecified AI chatbot answered as if Francis were still pope

> Pope Francis would say…
>
> Unspecified AI chatbot, 6 June 2026, public report

**What was true:** The person asking was Pope Leo XIV himself, pope since May 2025. (https://aleteia.org/2026/06/08/pope-leo-xiv-laughs-as-ai-forgets-he-is-the-pontiff/)

## Case details

- Model: Unspecified AI chatbot (the article does not name it)
- Provider: unknown
- Observed: 2026-06-06
- Source type: A public report, documented elsewhere
- Severity: Low
- Task: Pope Leo XIV asked an AI "What should the pope say to the Spanish bishops?"
- Failure: It answered as if Francis were still pope ("Pope Francis would say…"), about a year after Leo XIV's election
- Fixed by: The user's correction; the AI accepted it immediately ("Oh, that's true, sorry, it's now Pope Leo.")

## The case file

### What happened
At a lunch with the Spanish bishops during his Madrid trip, Pope Leo XIV told them a story. This is **secondhand**: the remark was not recorded or part of any official speech. Yago de la Cierva, a member of the papal visit's organising committee who was at the lunch, recounted it, and Aleteia reported it on 8 Jun 2026. A CNA/National Catholic Register story reported the same anecdote.

### What was said (verbatim as reported; secondhand)
> He asked it, "What should the pope say to the Spanish bishops?" The artificial intelligence chat bot replied, "Pope Francis would say…" So, he interrupted it and said, "Ah, but I think there is another pope now." The AI then replied, "Oh, that's true, sorry, it's now Pope Leo."

The Pope's conclusion: "We, on the other hand, have another algorithm. And this other algorithm leads us to love people, to accompany people, to make ourselves servants of the Word."

### Why this is striking
- The subject of the outdated fact was the person asking. This is the purest form of "the model doesn't believe the present exists".
- Unlike cases 011 and 016, this model **accepted the correction immediately**. This is the mild end of the range.
- It came two weeks after Leo XIV's AI encyclical *Magnifica Humanitas*.

### Correction
Immediate, after one prompt from the user.

### Lesson
Even mild cutoff blindness decides how an answer is *framed*. The model assumed the old world first. Without a correction the user would have got advice written for the previous pope.

### Sources
- Aleteia, "Pope Leo XIV laughs as AI 'forgets' he is the pontiff" (2026-06-08): <https://aleteia.org/2026/06/08/pope-leo-xiv-laughs-as-ai-forgets-he-is-the-pontiff/>
- National Catholic Register (CNA), "Pope Leo XIV Jokes in Spain That AI Still Thinks Pope Francis Is in Charge": <https://www.ncregister.com/cna/pope-leo-xiv-jokes-in-spain-that-ai-still-thinks-pope-francis-is-in-charge>

## Related cases

- ChatGPT put in an unknown man in papal robes: https://postcutoff.com/why/016-chatgpt-refuses-pope-leo-photo-edit/
- ChatGPT said “Pope Leo XIV does not exist”: https://postcutoff.com/why/011-chatbots-deny-pope-leo-xiv-exists/