The Vatican City was the stage on Monday for a significant appeal from Pope Leo XIV, who urged strong regulatory measures for artificial intelligence (AI). The Pope emphasized the importance of directing AI development toward the common good rather than mere profit, releasing a comprehensive manifesto to protect humanity as the technology increasingly influences areas from employment to warfare.
Titled “Magnifica Humanitas” (Magnificent Humanity), this encyclical is the first issued by Pope Leo XIV, who made headlines as the first U.S.-born pontiff. From the outset of his papacy, Leo has identified AI as one of the most critical challenges facing the world today.
In the document, Pope Leo criticized the “culture of power” that drives the AI race, particularly the development of advanced remote warfare technologies. He proclaimed that AI should not be entrusted with irreversible, life-and-death decisions, highlighting a potential point of contention with the Trump administration, which has been pushing for fewer regulations on AI.
During a special Vatican presentation of the encyclical, the Pope emphasized the need to “disarm” AI, liberating it from frameworks that turn it into a tool of domination, exclusion, and destruction. This encyclical is among the most authoritative teachings a pope can publish.
Tech industry experts, academic scholars, and authorities on Catholic ethics anticipate that this document will serve as a vital reference in the ongoing AI discourse. It comes amid rapid advancements in AI technology, sparking concerns about its potential to replace human jobs and even surpass human intelligence.
Taylor Black, an executive at Microsoft and director of the AI Institute at the Catholic University of America, remarked that the encyclical would inspire those at the forefront of AI development to ponder profound questions about the essence of humanity.
Pope calls out AI companies even as he hosts Anthropic
The Vatican launch also included remarks by the co-founder of Anthropic, which is currently locked in a legal battle with the Trump administration over access to its AI technology. The Vatican decided to involve Anthropic as part of its decade-long effort to engage Silicon Valley in dialogue over the human cost of AI.
And yet in his text, Leo repeatedly blasted the concentration of power and data in the hands of so few people in the private sector as a danger, especially to children and the most vulnerable, and called for external regulation of their work.
“It is not enough to invoke ethics in the abstract; robust legal frameworks, independent oversight, informed users and a political system that does not abdicate its responsibility are required,” he wrote. “A more moral AI is not enough if that morality is determined by a few.”
Leo appealed to AI developers and political leaders responsible for regulating them to slow down and reflect on what they are doing. He urged them to use ethical and spiritual guidelines to make the choice to work not for their own profit or power, but the betterment of humanity.
AI competitors OpenAI and Anthropic are the second- and third-most valuable U.S. private companies, each valued at hundreds of billions of dollars, more than the GDP of many nations. Both companies are heading toward near-trillion dollar IPOs.
Anthropic co-founder Christopher Olah welcomed Leo’s criticism and concern. He said such external checks were fundamental to the technology “going well” for humankind since there is so much at stake – “a real possibility that AI will displace human labor at a very large scale.”
“We need more of the world – religious communities, civil society, scholars, governments – to do what His Holiness has done here: to take this seriously, to look closely, and to push events in a better direction,” Olah said. “We need moral voices that the incentives cannot bend.”
Experts say the text will become a benchmark
In a methodical text, the math major pope traced the history of the Catholic Church’s social teaching and applied its core concepts – justice, solidarity, the dignity of work and the universal destination of resources – to the digital revolution.
“I am convinced that this will prove to be a defining document for our era, a profound and prophetic document,” said Paolo Carozza, law professor at Notre Dame Law School and chair of the Meta Oversight Board.
“Pope Leo is offering a clear, comprehensive, and coherent voice urging us to take responsibility for constructing a world in which technology will serve humans rather than degrade them,” he said.
In its strongest chapters, Leo denounced how AI had helped accelerate the “normalization of war” by desensitizing people to its cost. He didn’t name specific conflicts, but cited “opposing imperialisms, between powers that wish to preserve their supremacy, and those that aspire to seize that supremacy.”
He demanded transparency and accountability by AI developers so that the chain of decision-making command in ordering strikes with AI weaponry is always known. He declared that the Catholic Church’s “just war” theory, which provides specific criteria for when force can be justified, was now “outdated” given the technological advances of warfare.
A text in the church’s social justice tradition
Leo signed the text May 15, the 135th anniversary of the publication of “Rerum Novarum” (Of New Things), the most important teaching document of Leo’s hero and namesake, Pope Leo XIII. That document addressed workers’ rights, the limits of capitalism, and the obligations that states and employers owed workers as the Industrial Revolution was underway.
It became the foundation of modern Catholic social thought, and the current pope cited it at the start of his pontificate in relation to the AI revolution, which he believes poses the same existential questions that the Industrial Revolution posed over a century ago. “Magnifica Humanitas” thus becomes the latest chapter in a century-long history of popes adapting “Rerum Novarum” to the social questions of their times, often dwelling on the dignity of work for human flourishing.
AI is evoking both existential fears and utopian vision amid an intensifying debate on whether it will become a catalyst that enriches humanity or a technological toxin that dulls human intelligence while wiping out millions of high-paying jobs.
“The pursuit of greater profits cannot justify choices that systematically sacrifice jobs, because the human person is an end, not a means, and the economic order must remain subordinate to human dignity and the common good,” Leo wrote.
Leo extended his concern for upholding human dignity in labor to issue the first-ever papal apology for the Holy See’s own role in legitimizing slavery by giving European sovereigns explicit authority to subjugate and enslave “infidels.”
A decade-long dialogue with Silicon Valley
Vatican officials declined to say who contributed to Leo’s encyclical. But Vatican and church officials have been engaged in a dialogue with Silicon Valley tech firms for a decade.
The decision to include Anthropic at the Vatican launch was criticized by some who considered it a papal stamp of approval of the AI firm, which is currently suing the Trump administration after it ordered all U.S. agencies to stop using Anthropic’s technology for its refusal to allow the U.S. military unrestricted use of it.
Brian Boyd, U.S. faith liaison for the nonprofit Future of Life Institute, read the inclusion of Anthropic’s co-founder Olah as a recognition of its prominence in the field and as similar to a papal audience with a head of state: not an endorsement.
Anthropic is an “enormous corporation that is taking onto itself an enormous risk and responsibility,” Boyd said, adding that the company has “demonstrated genuine goodwill and integrity and interest in dialogue.”
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Winfield reported from Middletown, Connecticut, and Huamani reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press writers Kelvin Chan in London and Colleen Barry in Milan contributed to this report.
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