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In May 2026, Pope Leo XIV released his first encyclical, entitled “Magnifica Humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence”. He appeals for the safeguarding of humanity, promotion of truth, dignity of work, social justice and peace; he underlines the AI’s impact on human life, including democracy, war and the future of the common good, among many other aspects. As the Pope raised concerns about the AI’s disruptive aspects, the encyclical is a valuable contribution to the ongoing discussion of AI ethics.
Background
Pope Leo XIV has taken up the legacy of his predecessor, writing a social encyclical which addresses one of the principal challenges of the contemporary age: artificial intelligence. The Magnifica Humanitas (MH) has an underlying premise: technology is not “a force antagonistic to humanity”, nor is it “inherently evil”. However, “technology is never neutral, because it takes on the characteristics of those who devise, finance, regulate and use it.
The Pope then identifies a vital principle of the “universal destination of goods.” At this point, and in other parts of the encyclical, Pope Leo insists on the need to ensure that technologies are not concentrated in the hands of only a few people, thereby widening the gap between those included and those excluded from the digital revolution. As to subsidiarity, it requires humanity to overcome “any form of paternalistic or welfare-based management of societal life” in favor of shared responsibility.
Source: https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2026-05/pope-leo-xiv-encyclical-magnifica-humanitas-ai.html
His concern is about what this technology is doing to understanding of humanity, of human beings, the dignity of work and the creativity of the human beings; thus, it goes down to the question of what does it mean to be human.
The digital policy “establishes that technologies such as AI must serve all people through knowledge management processes”. However, humans must be aware of the potential biases resulting from the collection and production of data through algorithms. His general message is that “we are currently training in the creation of ethical use of algorithms”; the moves that Pope Francis popularised as ‘algorethics’.
Marking the 135th anniversary of Rerum Novarum (signed and released in May 2026), the 245-paragraph text analyses the artificial intelligence impact on human life, including the dignity of human work, democracy, war and the future of the common good, among many other aspects.
More in: https://cafod.org.uk/pray/magnifica-humanitas-explained
Encouraging global leaders
Pope Leo XIV’s MH has been encouraging university leaders, professors and AI researchers – Catholic and non-Catholic alike – to reconsider fundamental questions about human dignity, ethics, rights, power and what distinguishes human from artificial intelligence. Some say that the Magnifica Humanitas (MH) was one of the most anticipated encyclicals of all time, and that Pope’s encyclical created the framework, involving modern complicated social justice issues.
Chris Olah, co-founder of the AI-research company Anthropic, who shares Leo’s concerns about AI’s and the owners of major platforms’ threat to ‘human dignity’.
E.g. Sam Altman said: “We see a future where intelligence is a utility like electricity or water and people buy it from us on a meter and use it for whatever they want to use it for.” Speaking at the recent BlackRock Infrastructure Summit in Washington, the OpenAI CEO said that tech companies like his were “creating future” where intelligence would be “delivered on demand”.
Citation from: https://www.businessinsider.com/sam-altman-ai-utility-electricity-water-openai-2026-3
A broader evolution of generative AI is presently acknowledged by all: the era kicked off with a bang when OpenAI launched ChatGPT in late 2022, and the chatbot became the fastest-growing tech product in history. More recently, AI models have begun to support autonomous digital agents and similar tools that can use computers independently to accomplish complex tasks.
In January 2026, Anthropic unveiled Claude Cowork, an AI agent that handles tasks such as document generation and file management; the startup rolled out Claude Sonnet 4.6, its latest AI model, which the Anthropic calls “computer use” with the AI models and agents using computers in similar ways “the humans get tasks done”.
Source: https://www.businessinsider.com/openclaw-ai-demand-token-use-surge-nvidia-pricing-jumps-2026-2
Encyclical roots
Magnifica Humanitas is rooted in the Catholic Social Doctrine and its teachings about the dignity of each individual as being part of God’s creation. Since Leo is a member of the Augustinian order, the encyclical is often couched in terms defined by St Augustine of Hippo (present-day Annaba, Algeria), the Church Father who died in 430 AD and is best known as being the author of the influential Christian philosophy text “The City of God”.
Pope Leo follows Augustine in at least two ways: First, Leo uses the metaphor of the ‘two cities” – a very characteristic element of Augustinian thought is the transcendence of the heavenly city. As is known, God is God, and we are humans [in the earthly city], and there’s a lot of messiness in human society, “but the heavenly city is beautiful, true, good and perfect.” Secondly, the Pope Leo was always trying to build unity among people, i.e. the unity of Christians and Catholics, but also the unity of all humankind; and it is seen in the present encyclical.
Yet, as is the case with the Urbi et Orbi (to the city and to the world), the papal addresses at Easter and Christmas, Leo reaches beyond Catholic theology and addresses non-Catholics concerned about AI. Source and citations from: https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20260625185007844
The encyclical will have its most immediate impact on the 5.1 million students enrolled in 1,338 Catholic universities worldwide and on the 59.7 million students attending more than 157,000 Catholic primary and secondary schools, both being the world’s largest educational networks.
More on catholic education worldwide in: https://www.educatemagis.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/THE-CATHOLIC-EDUCATION-WORLDWIDE-1762863253.pdf
On modern digital world: pontiff’s view
Pope Leo’s characterisation of the digital world and AI as constituting “a new form of slavery” (MH, para 173) runs directly counter to the emancipatory rhetoric of AI models, techno-optimists and venture capitalist. There are “various forms of servitude directly linked to the digital economy”, according to Magnifica Humanitas, at the beginning of a trenchant materialist analysis of AI that bears many indications of the decades Robert Francis Prevost spent in the Global South, mainly in Peru, before he became Pope Leo.
“Nothing in the world of AI is immaterial or magical. Every seemingly immediate and flawless response is the result of a long chain of mediation, involving vast networks of natural resources, energy infrastructure and, above all, people. The Pope then defines the new – and largely invisible – colonialism in which university-based demographers and medical researchers and others are enmeshed. This new colonialism “no longer dominates only bodies but appropriates data, transforming personal lives into exploitable information, notes Magnifica.
“These have become the new ‘rare earths’ of power: vital data which, once aggregated and analysed, can be used to train predictive models, guide investment strategies, anticipate crises and, above all, determine who and what is deemed to matter.
“Those who control the health data of entire peoples – often collected under the pretext of aid, research or innovation – possess a structural leverage over the future, for they can shape needs and markets. They can also decide, before others, to whom medicines, investments and protections will be allocated. Here lies one of the most urgent moral challenges of our time: to ensure that shared knowledge becomes a true common good rather than an instrument of dominance,” Leo continues.
Finally, the Pontiff declares that unless the control of the data harvested from people without their approval is relinquished so that they can decide how it is used and by whom, “the digital age will not be post-colonial, but colonial in another form” – words, no doubt, that would shock most researchers on pandemics and other international medical areas of concern.
On AI’s ethical code
The MH’s third chapter is on technology and “ethical dominance”: “The Grandeur of Humanity in Light of the Promises of AI” stresses the need to approach artificial intelligence with vigilance. Pope Leo warns about the “technocratic paradigm” already denounced by Pope Francis and how it can require that every choice be dictated exclusively by measuring efficiency and profits. On the contrary, the most powerful technology is not necessarily the best. AI can imitate and simulate the person, but it does not possess a moral conscience, empathy, or affective, relational or spiritual capabilities.
The Pope urges clarity about responsibilities and accountability at every stage of the development process, focusing on adequate AI policies and legal frameworks, independent oversight, and user education.
Above all, Pope Leo calls for an ethical code subject to shared standards of social justice, because “a more moral AI is not enough if that morality is determined by a few”. Nor, he adds, should the environmental impact of new technologies be overlooked, since they require large quantities of energy and water, affecting Creation.
The AI must be “disarmed,” Pope Leo XIV continues, in order to free it from the mentality of military, economic and cognitive competition. “To disarm means discrediting the assumption that technical power automatically confers the right to govern,” he says. “To disarm does not mean rejecting technology, but preventing it from dominating humanity”. He devotes ample space to a critique of transhumanism and posthumanism, which interpret progress as the overcoming of human limits. Instead, limitations are not defects to be eliminated, but a constitutive dimension of the human person, because it is in fragility and finitude that relationship and openness to God and to others mature. He says we must remember that “humanity flourishes not despite limitations, but often through them”.
Pursuing technological innovation at the expense of eliminating human limitations, he says, would cause an anthropological regression. “Humanity—in all its grandeur and woundedness—must never be replaced or surpassed,” he says. Technology can alleviate humanity’s sufferings and open new possibilities, but it must not deny the essence of humanity, which is our “capacity for relationship and love”. In the face of AI, says the Pope, “the true alternative is not between enthusiasm and fear, but between two paths of development: a progress that serves individuals and peoples, or a progress that subjects them to the mentality of power”.
The dignity of work
In the “fourth industrial revolution” represented by the digital transition, the Pope emphasizes the importance of protecting the dignity of work by designing systems centered on the person and not only on performance. “The ‘new ways’ of working are not necessarily better,” he writes, “while AI promises to boost productivity by taking over mundane tasks, it frequently forces workers to adapt to the speed and demands of machines, rather than machines being designed to support those who work”. Technology can certainly free human beings from burdensome or repetitive tasks, but it must not lead to unemployment in the name of reducing costs and increasing profit. In this regard, the Pope expresses his hopes for a renewal of labor organizations.
Crisis of multilateralism
The culture of power also emerges from the crisis of multilateralism and the emergence of “a disorderly and conflict-ridden multipolarism” with a prevailing sense of mistrust. The Pope laments that the rule of law has been replaced by the law of the strongest, while the logic of power prevails over peace building and institutions established to safeguard the common destiny of peoples have now been weakened. In this regard, the Pope hopes for “profound reforms” of the UN that can overcome the current crisis of values in favor of the common good.
General source and all citations are from: https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2026-05/pope-leo-xiv-encyclical-magnifica-humanitas-ai.html
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