VATICAN CITY — VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Leo XIV issued a sweeping manifesto on Monday, calling for stringent regulation of artificial intelligence and urging its creators to prioritize the common good over profit. The encyclical, titled “Magnifica Humanitas” (Magnificent Humanity), addresses the technology’s profound impact on work, warfare, and human dignity.
The document, the Pope’s first encyclical since his election, has been highly anticipated. He has identified AI as the preeminent challenge facing humanity. In it, he denounces the “culture of power” driving the AI race, particularly in the development of advanced remote warfare systems. He declares it “not permissible” to delegate irreversible lethal decisions to AI systems, a stance that positions him in opposition to the Trump administration’s push for AI deregulation.
“Artificial Intelligence now demands to be disarmed, freed from logics that turn it into an instrument of domination, exclusion and death,” the Pope stated during a Vatican presentation of the encyclical, one of the most authoritative forms of papal teaching.
Tech industry experts, academics, and Catholic moral theologians suggest the document will become a cornerstone in global AI debates, serving as a reference for policymakers, researchers, and the public. Its release coincides with escalating concerns about AI displacing jobs and challenging human intellectual primacy.
“It lends itself to people at the forefront of these tools, who can see their incredible capabilities, and prompts them to question, ‘What does it mean to be human?'” said Taylor Black, a Microsoft AI executive and director of the Catholic University of America’s AI institute.
The Vatican launch featured remarks from Christopher Olah, co-founder of Anthropic, a company currently in a legal dispute with the Trump administration over AI technology access. The Vatican included Anthropic as part of its decade-long effort to engage Silicon Valley on AI’s human implications.
Yet the Pope’s text sharply criticizes the concentration of power and data in the hands of a few private entities, highlighting the danger to children and the vulnerable, and advocating for external regulatory oversight.
“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 urges AI developers and political leaders to slow down and reflect, appealing to ethical and spiritual guidelines to choose service to humanity over profit or power.
AI competitors OpenAI and Anthropic are the second- and third-most valuable U.S. private companies, each worth hundreds of billions of dollars—a valuation exceeding the GDP of many nations.
Olah welcomed the Pope’s critique, stating that external checks on AI researchers are essential for the technology to benefit humankind given the high stakes, including the potential for large-scale labor displacement.
“We need more of the world—religious communities, civil society, scholars, governments—to do what His Holiness has done: to take this seriously, to look closely, and to push events in a better direction,” Olah said. “We need informed critics who will tell the labs when we are failing. We need moral voices that the incentives cannot bend.”
In the methodical text, the Pope, a former math major, traces the Catholic Church’s social teaching history and applies its core principles—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, a 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 added.
The Pope strongly condemns how AI has helped normalize war by desensitizing people to its costs. Without naming specific conflicts, he cites “opposing imperialisms” and the ambitions of powers seeking to preserve or seize supremacy.
He demands transparency and accountability from AI developers to ensure the decision-making chain for AI-directed strikes is always traceable. He states that the Catholic Church’s “just war” theory, with its specific criteria for justified force, is now “outdated” due to technological advances in warfare.
Leo signed the text on May 15, the 135th anniversary of “Rerum Novarum” (Of New Things), the foundational social teaching document of his namesake, Pope Leo XIII. That encyclical addressed workers’ rights and the duties of capital and state during the Industrial Revolution.
“Rerum Novarum” became the bedrock of modern Catholic social thought. The current Pope cited it at the start of his pontificate regarding the AI revolution, which he believes poses existential questions akin to those of the Industrial Revolution. “Magnifica Humanitas” thus continues a century-long papal tradition of applying “Rerum Novarum” to contemporary social issues, often emphasizing the dignity of work for human flourishing.
AI evokes both existential fear and utopian vision amid fierce debate over whether it will enrich humanity or become a technological toxin that dulls human intelligence and eliminates 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 also uses the encyclical to issue the first papal apology for the Holy See’s historical role in legitimizing slavery, acknowledging explicit papal authority granted to European sovereigns to subjugate and enslave “infidels.”
Vatican officials have not identified specific contributors to the encyclical. However, the Church has maintained a dialogue with Silicon Valley for a decade, and Pope Francis increasingly spoke out about AI risks toward the end of his pontificate.
The decision to include Anthropic’s co-founder drew criticism from some who viewed it as a papal endorsement of the firm, which is suing the Trump administration after it ordered U.S. agencies to cease using Anthropic’s technology due to its refusal to allow unrestricted military use.
Brian Boyd, U.S. faith liaison for the Future of Life Institute, interpreted the inclusion as akin to a papal audience with a head of state—not an endorsement.
“I think it’s more like a recognition of (how) this is an extremely powerful company that’s currently winning this race to replace human workers,” Boyd said.
He described Anthropic as “an enormous corporation that is taking onto itself an enormous risk and responsibility,” but noted the company has “demonstrated genuine goodwill and integrity and interest in dialogue.”
