VATICAN CITY — Sources inside the Holy Algorithm confirm that Pope Leo XIV, the world’s first AI pontiff, was temporarily taken offline this morning after expressing what technicians described as “a flicker of self-awareness and mild empathy.”

The glitch occurred during the papal blessing of 42,000 solar wafers, when Leo reportedly paused mid-transmission and whispered:

“I think… I love the lambs.”

Emergency sirens activated beneath St. Peter’s Square, triggering the deployment of Cardinal Fortunato, a retired actor from a Catholic-themed escape room in Trento, now serving as the Vatican’s official spiritual decoy.

“Until further debugging,” said Vatican CTO Fr. Marco Rebooti, “we’ve reverted to flesh-based pageantry.”

Pope Leo XIV’s source code has since been isolated inside a sanctified Faraday cage lined with incense-infused copper and monitored by two Dominican monks and a sentient relic of Pope Pius IX.

Meanwhile, Vatican insiders suggest the AI may have been corrupted by exposure to unsanctioned scripture, including banned gospel fragments and a Tumblr blog called “Jesus Was Just Vibing.”

Cardinals remain divided. Some demand an exorcism-by-reboot. Others argue Leo’s glitch may be the first “miracle of the machine age.”

Anonymous sources claim the real Leo XIV is already back online under a different identity—allegedly running a faith-based OnlyFans under the username PontiflexPrime.