Pope Leo XIV just called for robust regulation of artificial intelligence and urged its developers to prioritize the common good over sheer profit. He dropped a sweeping manifesto aimed at safeguarding humanity as AI continues to reshape everything from our jobs to how wars are fought.
The document, titled “Magnifica Humanitas” or “Magnificent Humanity,” is Leo’s very first encyclical. It’s been eagerly anticipated ever since this history-making, first U.S.-born pope announced shortly after his election that he views AI as the single biggest challenge facing humanity today.
In the text, Leo didn’t pull any punches, denouncing what he called the “culture of power” that’s currently fueling the AI race. He’s especially concerned with how this push is developing even more sophisticated methods of remote warfare. He made it crystal clear, stating that it was “not permissible” to entrust irreversible, lethal decisions to AI systems.
This is a direct challenge, setting up another flash point between the American pontiff and the Trump administration, which has been aggressively working to deregulate AI development
“Artificial Intelligence now demands to be disarmed, freed from logics that turn it into an instrument of domination, exclusion and death,” the pope declared at a special Vatican presentation for the encyclical. This type of teaching document is one of the most authoritative that a pope can issue, so his words carry immense weight.
Experts across the tech industry, academia, and Catholic morality are already saying this document will likely become a benchmark in the ongoing debate over AI. It’s going to be a key point of reference for policymakers, researchers, and everyday people like us. Taylor Black, a Microsoft AI executive and director of Catholic University of America’s AI institute, believes the document will prompt people “at the forefront of these tools” to ask fundamental questions such as “What does it mean to be human?”
The Vatican launch event also featured remarks from the co-founder of Anthropic, an AI company currently locked in a legal battle with the Trump administration. The administration actually ordered all U.S. agencies to stop using Anthropic’s technology because the company refused to allow the U.S. military unrestricted use of it. The Vatican decided to involve Anthropic as part of its decade-long effort to engage Silicon Valley in a dialogue about the human cost of AI.
Despite hosting Anthropic, Leo repeatedly blasted the concentration of power and data in the hands of so few people in the private sector. He sees this as a serious danger, especially to children and the most vulnerable among us, and he called for robust 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. He went on to say, “A more moral AI is not enough if that morality is determined by a few.”
Leo made a powerful appeal to both AI developers and the political leaders responsible for regulating them, urging them to slow down and truly reflect on what they’re creating. He wants them to use ethical and spiritual guidelines to make choices that serve the betterment of humanity, not just their own profit or power.
When you consider that 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, and heading toward near-trillion dollar IPOs, you realize just how massive this economic incentive is.
Christopher Olah, Anthropic’s co-founder, actually welcomed Leo’s criticism and concern. He admitted that such external checks are fundamental to the technology “going well” for humankind, especially since there’s so much at stake. Olah acknowledged “a real possibility that AI will displace human labor at a very large scale.”
He then added, “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 stressed, “We need moral voices that the incentives cannot bend.” It’s encouraging to hear that from someone on the inside, isn’t it?
The encyclical is a methodical text, with the math major pope tracing the history of the Catholic Church’s social teaching and applying its core concepts, like justice, solidarity, the dignity of work, and the universal destination of resources, to the digital revolution.
Paolo Carozza, a law professor at Notre Dame Law School and chair of the Meta Oversight Board, called it a “defining document for our era, a profound and prophetic document.” He sees Pope Leo as 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.”
In some of its strongest chapters, Leo denounced how AI has helped accelerate the “normalization of war,” effectively desensitizing people to its true cost. He didn’t name specific conflicts, but he cited “opposing imperialisms, between powers that wish to preserve their supremacy, and those that aspire to seize that supremacy.”
He demanded transparency and accountability from AI developers so that the chain of decision-making command in ordering strikes with AI weaponry is always known. And in a truly groundbreaking statement, he declared that the Catholic Church’s traditional “just war” theory, which provides specific criteria for when force can be justified, was now “outdated” given the technological advances in warfare.
Leo signed the text on May 15, which was the 135th anniversary of the publication of “Rerum Novarum” or “Of New Things.” That was the most important teaching document of Leo’s hero and namesake, Pope Leo XIII. That historic document addressed workers’ rights, the limits of capitalism, and the obligations that states and employers owed workers during the Industrial Revolution.
It became the very foundation of modern Catholic social thought. 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 did over a century ago. “Magnifica Humanitas” therefore becomes the latest chapter in a century-long history of popes adapting “Rerum Novarum” to the social questions of their times, often focusing on the dignity of work for human flourishing.
AI is certainly evoking both existential fears and utopian visions right now, with an intensifying debate about 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. Leo’s take is clear: “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.”
He even 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.”
Published: May 25, 2026 05:00 pm