No, Pope Leo Did Not Give the Vatican’s Highest Honor to Iran

Yesterday evening, a story exploded across X claiming that Pope Leo XIV had personally awarded the Vatican’s “highest diplomatic honor” to Iran’s ambassador to the Holy See, supposedly in recognition of Tehran’s “efforts to promote peace,” justice, and opposition to warmongering.

The reaction spread as fast as it did because the underlying grievances are all too real—Iran executes converts to Christianity, imprisons and executes activists on a routine basis, and brutally murdered an estimated 36,500 Iranian protesters in just 48 hours earlier this year.

That would have made this story all the more outrageous—had it been true.

The thing is, it wasn’t. One of the earliest red flags about this whole incident was that the only actual media outlets covering this were themselves Iranian state propaganda, including Mehr and PressTV. One potentially AI-generated image of Pope Leo shaking hands with an Iranian ayatollah surfaced with the Islamic Republic News Agency’s logo slapped onto it.

It wasn’t until this morning that we got some clarification on the whole matter, when the US Embassy to the Holy See posted an account that debunked the vast majority of Iran’s framing:

Contrary to news reports, Pope Leo has not bestowed an exclusive special honor on the Iranian Ambassador to the Holy See. This decoration is given to all accredited ambassadors to the Holy See after 2+ years of service and has been standard practice for many years. It is a personal recognition and does not imply support or opposition to any policy or country. Thirteen ambassadors were recently given this recognition. Previous US ambassadors have all received the same. Finally, the decoration was not given in person by the pope.

Clearly, things were not as they were originally presented by Iran—this was not an endorsement of the ambassador, much less of the regime more broadly, whose brutality Pope Leo has previously condemned. Instead, what had transpired was a routine process that essentially amounts to a participation trophy given to every ambassador after two and a half years of diplomatic service. Thirteen separate ambassadors received the same recognition in the same batch alone.

Importantly, despite how social media posts framed the issue, it was not presented in person, and the Pope doesn’t seem to have been involved at all—it was signed by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s Secretary of State.

Now, it’s a legitimate question whether the timing of such a recognition was well thought out by Cardinal Parolin, and if the Vatican should maintain relations with the Islamic Republic more generally.

Historically, the Vatican has maintained diplomatic relations with virtually every country on Earth—including rogue states—on the grounds that diplomatic presence is the most effective way to advocate for persecuted Christians within those countries. The Catholic Church has a small presence in the country, including four parishes, though many have fled over the years.

Even though this is standard operating procedure for any ambassador, these are not ordinary circumstances, and it’s understandable that some online may wish this had not taken place at all.

That aside, what is far more concerning is how successful the regime’s framing of this was in circles that would otherwise be least likely to accept their reporting without question. Accounts that are openly hostile to the Islamic Republic were openly retweeting state media articles, presenting its false description as true without even the slightest scrutiny. Some descended into vehemently anti-Catholic levels of hatred, literally depicting the Pope being whipped.

Throughout most of 2026, Iran has been using AI-generated content to flood social media with fake news variously from depicting the American Navy being destroyed to celebrating downing of US fighter jets that never happened. They got some traction in certain circles online, but never really gained traction outside of circles that were already openly hostile to the US-Israeli operation.

This situation, however, was completely different. The Iranian regime very clearly wants to use Catholicism as a rift to get a foothold among accounts that are more supportive of the war effort. One the regime’s most successful inroads was through longtime Iran hawk Eyal Yakoby, was prominently posted the report no fewer than four separate times. At time of writing, the posts have racked up over half a million impressions—with the IRNA logo on them to boot.

The people most hostile to the Islamic Republic became, for a few hours yesterday, its most effective English-language distributors—laundering Tehran’s framing into spaces Iranian state media could never reach on its own. The US’ Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, is himself Catholic and has been one of the most outspoken Iran hawks in the administration. This is no accident—the regime clearly wants to use this as a wedge to divide the administration, and wider world, in ways that directly benefit it and it alone.

Next time you see a post with the IRNA logo on it saying something about the Pope, think twice before sharing and promoting it.