by Pablo Martín | Sep 6, 2026 | Artificial intelligence, Theology and Technology
In 2016, the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation had to recognize something uncomfortable: a person’s right not to have an automated decision be the final word on their life. Eight years later, the European Artificial Intelligence Act went further and required human oversight for high-risk systems.
The fact that this had to be written into law says more than any consulting report. Placing a human being at the end of a process does not guarantee that this person is judging anything. There may be a formal responsible party, a confirmation screen, a signature, while the real decision has already been made by the system that classified the case and drafted the explanation later presented as evidence.
Thomas Aquinas had already drawn the exact border of this problem in the thirteenth century. He distinguished efficiency from prudence. A system can find the most efficient means to reduce a cost or increase a conversion. What it cannot do by itself is judge whether the end being pursued is rightly chosen, whether the sacrifice it demands is proportionate, or whether the metric used to represent the good is the correct one.
Artificial intelligence optimizes within the world we build for it. When that world contains a badly formulated end, greater precision does not correct the problem. It makes it faster and less visible.
Leo XIV brought that same distinction to the center of his first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas. He warns that the use of artificial intelligence is never a purely technical fact. When it intervenes in work, credit or access to opportunities, it may end up selecting who is considered worthy without anyone assuming the moral weight of that selection.
Mary Parker Follett anticipated the same boundary from another angle. In 1926, she argued that authority does not reside in the position of the person who gives an order, but in the concrete situation that the order attempts to resolve. She proposed studying the situation together and obeying what she called the law of the situation, not merely the person who states it.
A system can help us understand a situation better. What it cannot do is discover that law in Follett’s sense, because the law of the situation is not merely a statistical pattern. It is a judgment about what this singular case morally and practically requires. That judgment can only be made by someone capable of answering for it.
In 2019, a team led by Ziad Obermeyer published in Science a case that shows this damage already occurring without anyone intending it. An algorithm used by hospitals and insurers to prioritize patients used historical spending as a proxy for how sick each patient was. The problem was that Black patients, because of previous barriers to access, generated less spending than white patients with the same real level of illness.
At the same risk score, Black patients were substantially sicker. Correcting the bias would have more than doubled the proportion of Black patients identified for additional help. No one programmed that prejudice directly. The system inherited a real inequality and turned it into an apparently neutral number.
Aquinas distinguished efficiency from prudence. Leo XIV warned that no algorithm can bear the weight of deciding who is worthy. Follett showed that legitimate authority is born from studying a situation, not from a rank or a calculation. Separated by centuries and by very different vocabularies, all three point to the same boundary: there is a judgment about persons that no machine can make on behalf of the person who leads, because making that judgment is precisely what leadership means.
by Research Team from the Laboratory of the Future | Aug 30, 2026 | geopolitics, Theology and Technology
Throughout this journey through the Vatican’s position on artificial intelligence, we have seen how the Holy See has built a complex and articulated response to one of the decisive challenges of our time. From Magnifica Humanitas to the Interdicasterial Commission, from the Rome Call for AI Ethics to diplomatic presence in global forums, the Vatican has combined moral authority with the ability to convene diverse actors around shared ethical principles.
The Vatican’s position differs from other global approaches in several ways. First, it offers an anthropological foundation: the dignity of the person does not depend on utility, efficiency or productivity, but on the person’s condition as a creature loved by God. This foundation allows the Pope to criticize transhumanism, posthumanism and any vision that reduces the person to data or to an optimizable resource.
Second, the Vatican introduces a moral language that goes beyond technical regulation: “disarming AI,” “new digital slaveries,” and “digital colonialism.” The aim is not only to establish norms but to transform mentalities.
Third, the Vatican seeks to act as mediator and catalyst in the global debate. Without military or economic power, its authority rests on its capacity to convene companies, governments, religions and civil society around common ethical commitments. The Rome Call for AI Ethics is the clearest expression of this strategy.
Fourth, the Vatican has developed an institutional architecture that can translate principles into coordinated action: the Interdicasterial Commission, the Observatory for the Environment and the RenAIssance Foundation.
Fifth, it offers a vision of hope. Against technological acceleration, it proposes pause, reflection and dialogue. Against the concentration of power, subsidiarity and participation. Against war, peace and justice. Against domination, service.
The response to Magnifica Humanitas has been diverse. Many experts have valued it as a moral voice that does not bend to incentives. Others have criticized the lack of concrete mechanisms for dismantling existing monopolies or questioned the presence of large technology actors in Vatican conversations. Within the Church itself, some voices are more optimistic and others more cautious.
The future of the Vatican initiative faces several challenges. The first is the speed of technological change, which far exceeds the pace of national and international regulation. The second is the fragmentation of global governance: the European Union moves through the AI Act, China promotes its own international framework, and the United States prioritizes competitiveness. The third is pastoral implementation: principles must be translated into the daily life of communities and Catholic professionals working in technology. The fourth is ecological: the energy, water and mineral footprint of AI demands responses that exceed what the Vatican alone can provide.
Despite these challenges, the Vatican’s position has relevance beyond the religious sphere. In a world where AI is developing at dizzying speed with limited ethical counterweights and fragmented governance, a voice that does not represent economic or geopolitical interests acquires singular importance.
The encyclical concludes with a note of hope, invoking the image of Nehemiah rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem, brick by brick. In the age of digital transformation, the call is not to be resigned spectators or mere commentators of the ruins, but women and men who enter the worksites of history: laboratories, companies, schools, media, institutions and local communities.
At the center stands the faith in the Incarnation: the Word became flesh. Against a world that promises to overcome the human condition through technology, the Vatican recalls that what saves humanity is not a more efficient machine, but a love capable of descending to the most fragile point of history and regenerating it from within.
This may be the Vatican’s most enduring contribution to the debate on AI: the affirmation that, at the center of the digital age, there remains a human face that no machine can ever replace in its splendor.
Annex: Vatican interventions on AI, 2013-2026
- 2013: Pope Francis addresses technology in Evangelii gaudium.
- 2015: Laudato si’ denounces the technocratic paradigm.
- 2020: First signing of the Rome Call for AI Ethics.
- 2024: Pope Francis speaks to the G7 on AI ethics.
- 2025: Publication of Antiqua et nova.
- 2026: Publication of Magnifica Humanitas and creation of the Interdicasterial Commission on AI.
by Research Team from the Laboratory of the Future | Aug 23, 2026 | geopolitics, Theology and Technology
The Holy See has carried out intense diplomatic activity around artificial intelligence in 2026, using its observer status at the United Nations and its bilateral relations with more than 180 states. This activity is not accidental: Magnifica Humanitas calls for a transition from a culture of power to a true culture of negotiation, where dialogue and diplomacy become the usual path for addressing conflict.
On June 19, 2026, the Vatican delegation to the United Nations in New York participated in an interactive dialogue with the co-chairs of the Independent International Scientific Panel on AI. The delegation stated that assessing the opportunities and risks of artificial intelligence does not mean obstructing progress, but exercising responsibility.
The delegation stressed that technology is never neutral. It inevitably reflects the priorities and assumptions of those who design, finance, regulate and use it. Every system incorporates choices through what it measures, what it ignores and what it optimizes. For that reason, ethical considerations must guide technical aspects from the beginning instead of being treated as an accessory or later addition.
On July 8, 2026, during the AI for Good Global Summit in Geneva, the Permanent Mission of the Holy See promoted a high-level conversation dedicated to Magnifica Humanitas. The debate connected the ethics of AI development, business responsibility and the reasons for the Holy See’s active engagement.
The Vatican’s presence in the G7 has also been significant. Pope Francis had already addressed world leaders on AI ethics in 2024. Leo XIV continued and deepened that line, calling not only for regulation but for the disarmament of AI and for technology to become welcoming rather than threatening.
The encyclical also diagnoses the crisis of multilateralism. Institutions created to safeguard the shared destiny of peoples, especially the United Nations, appear weakened not only by structural limits but by the absence of a shared will to support and reform them. The force of international law is often replaced by the supposed right of the strongest.
The Pope calls for an international framework that includes algorithmic transparency, independent audits, equitable access to data, appeal mechanisms for people affected by automated decisions, and shared rules to slow the technological arms race.
Vatican diplomacy is not limited to institutional presence. It proposes a cultural change. In international relations, dialogue is the indispensable instrument of diplomacy, even with interlocutors considered uncomfortable or illegitimate. The goal is to recover even the weakest signs of goodwill and begin a process of pacification.
Cyberspace has also become a field of confrontation. Cyberattacks, data manipulation and influence campaigns assisted by AI can destabilize entire countries even before open armed conflict begins. In this environment, responsibility is often difficult to attribute, increasing the risk of disproportionate responses and escalation. A diplomacy capable of operating in this new environment is therefore essential.
Compared with other global actors, the Vatican occupies a distinct position. The European Union advances through the AI Act; China promotes its own international body; the United States struggles to articulate a coherent global governance strategy. The Vatican, without economic or military power, seeks to act as a moral mediator and a catalyst of conscience.
by Research Team from the Laboratory of the Future | Aug 16, 2026 | geopolitics, Theology and Technology
Magnifica Humanitas devotes an entire chapter to the military use of artificial intelligence. Pope Leo XIV warns that AI can lower the threshold for the use of force and feed a culture in which victims are reduced to data. His appeal is categorical: no algorithm can make war morally acceptable.
The Pope argues that the digital revolution is modifying the grammar of conflict. Visible war is now joined by hybrid forms: cyberattacks, information manipulation, influence campaigns and the automation of strategic decisions. AI accelerates these processes in a context where many technologies are intrinsically ambivalent: what is created to protect can quickly become a tool of attack.
AI does not free conflict from its inhumanity. It can make it faster, more impersonal and more opaque, turning defense into predictive operations and victims into data points. In this way, it accustoms us to the idea that violence is inevitable and must merely be optimized.
The Pope condemns the development of fully autonomous weapons, in which the decision to kill is delegated to automated systems. Moral judgment cannot be reduced to calculation. It implies conscience, personal responsibility and the recognition of the other as a person. For that reason, it is not legitimate to entrust lethal or irreversible decisions to artificial systems.
The encyclical demands traceability and accountability. For every system used in warfare, it must be possible to reconstruct decisions so that responsibility does not dissolve into the machine. Those who plan, train, authorize and deploy such systems must remain identifiable and answerable.
The Pope also denounces the technological arms race, including massive contracts between major technology companies and military institutions. AI may strengthen defense and civilian protection, but it can also lower the threshold for force, obscure responsibility and create a culture in which the enemy becomes a data point and the victim a collateral calculation.
The critique goes beyond autonomous weapons. The encyclical diagnoses the culture of power that normalizes war. Regional conflicts, escalation, cross-threats and territorial ambitions become habitual, while ethical criteria that once limited the use of force erode.
The Pope denounces the connection between economic interests, military systems and political decisions. War becomes a market, and arms industries benefit from conflicts that continue and expand. He also warns against the loss of historical memory, which makes it easier to rewrite the past and forget the lessons of catastrophe.
Against this culture of power, Leo XIV proposes five paths: disarming words, building peace in justice, adopting the gaze of the victims, cultivating a healthy realism and renewing dialogue and multilateralism. Dialogue remains the principal instrument of coexistence among persons and peoples.
Compared with other global actors, the Vatican appears as one of the clearest voices condemning the military use of AI and demanding effective human control. Its alternative is not naivety, but a refusal to accept the idea that technology should make violence easier to exercise and easier to forget.
by DR. Ricardo Petrissans | Jul 19, 2026 | Economy, Economy and the future of work, Theology and Technology
The digital economy often presents itself as clean, frictionless, and immaterial. The Vatican’s social critique asks us to look beneath that surface, where new forms of dependency, exploitation, and colonial power are taking shape.
Artificial intelligence depends on labor. It depends on miners extracting minerals, workers assembling devices, contractors labeling data, moderators absorbing disturbing content, drivers and couriers navigating platforms, engineers maintaining infrastructure, and users constantly producing behavioral information. The cloud is not weightless. It rests on bodies, territories, energy, and unequal bargaining power.
The hidden worker
One of the central risks of AI is that it makes labor disappear from view. A user sees a smooth interface and imagines automation. Behind that interface may be thousands of people correcting data, filtering outputs, writing examples, testing responses, or performing microtasks under precarious conditions. The machine appears autonomous because human labor has been fragmented and concealed.
The Vatican’s language of social denunciation insists that invisibility does not erase moral responsibility. If a system depends on exploited labor, the elegance of the final product cannot absolve the institutions that benefit from it.
Digital colonialism
Digital colonialism describes a world in which technological power is concentrated in a few countries and corporations while the costs are distributed globally. Data flows from populations to platforms. Value flows upward. Infrastructure, standards, and dependencies are set by actors far from the communities affected by them.
This can reproduce colonial patterns without formal occupation. A country may be politically independent yet dependent on foreign cloud infrastructure, foreign platforms, foreign AI models, and foreign terms of service. Its citizens may generate value without controlling the systems that classify, monetize, or govern them.
Work under algorithmic command
Platform labor reveals another dimension of the problem. Workers may appear independent while being managed by opaque algorithms. Their pay, visibility, tasks, routes, evaluations, and access to work can be shaped by systems they cannot question. The employer becomes a platform; the supervisor becomes a score; discipline becomes automatic.
This weakens the traditional tools of labor protection. If no human manager gives an order, who is accountable? If the worker is called a contractor, what rights remain? If the algorithm changes silently, how can people organize around it?
The common good in the digital economy
The Vatican’s critique points toward a different digital economy: one in which workers have rights, communities have voice, data practices are governed, and technology is measured by its service to human dignity. Innovation cannot be separated from justice. Productivity cannot be separated from participation.
AI will transform work, but the transformation is not predetermined. Societies can choose whether digital systems deepen inequality or distribute capability. The Vatican’s warning is therefore not anti-technological. It is anti-indifference. A future that hides exploitation behind automation is not progress. It is an old injustice with a new interface.
by Research Team from the Laboratory of the Future | Jul 12, 2026 | geopolitics, Theology and Technology
The dream of digital immortality promises a future in which consciousness can be copied, death can be delayed, and the human condition can be redesigned. The Vatican sees in that dream not only ambition, but a profound anthropological risk.
Transhumanism often begins from a legitimate desire: to heal disease, reduce suffering, extend healthy life, and expand human possibility. These goals are not foreign to Christian concern. Medicine, care, and scientific discovery can be expressions of love for the person. The tension begins when healing turns into contempt for limitation itself.
The meaning of the body
Digital immortality frequently assumes that the self is information. If the mind can be mapped, simulated, or uploaded, then perhaps the person can survive beyond the body. The Vatican challenges this assumption. The human person is not merely a pattern of data. Embodiment is not an accidental container; it is part of how people love, suffer, remember, forgive, labor, and belong.
A copy of memories or behaviors may imitate someone, but imitation is not resurrection. A predictive avatar may comfort the living, but it can also blur grief, identity, and consent. The desire to preserve a person can become the production of a convincing artifact.
Finitude and dignity
The Vatican’s critique does not romanticize suffering or death. It does, however, resist the idea that finitude makes human life defective. Mortality gives urgency to responsibility. Vulnerability makes solidarity necessary. Dependence reminds human beings that they are not self-created machines.
A culture obsessed with overcoming limitation can become impatient with the elderly, the disabled, the poor, and anyone whose body does not conform to an ideal of optimization. Transhumanism can therefore become socially dangerous when it divides people into upgraded and obsolete, enhanced and ordinary, efficient and burdensome.
The market for transcendence
The promise of radical enhancement will not arrive equally. It will be shaped by wealth, access, patents, platforms, and geopolitical competition. What is marketed as liberation may become a new hierarchy. The wealthy may buy longevity, cognitive augmentation, or digital legacy while others struggle for basic care.
This is why the Vatican places transhumanism within social ethics, not only metaphysics. The question is not only what technology can do to the human being. It is who controls that technology, who benefits from it, and who is pressured to adapt to it.
A human future
The Vatican’s answer is not to freeze humanity in the past. It is to insist that technological development must remain accountable to a richer understanding of the person. Human beings are not projects to be optimized indefinitely. They are relational, embodied, vulnerable, spiritual, and moral.
The dream of digital immortality may reveal a fear that technology cannot finally solve: the fear of being finite. The challenge is to build technologies that care for life without denying its mystery.
