The Vatican and artificial intelligence: the first encyclical on the digital age
When Pope Leo XIV published Magnifica Humanitas on May 25, 2026, the Holy See was not merely presenting one more document in its long tradition of social teaching. For the first time in history, an encyclical was devoted entirely to artificial intelligence. The text, more than two hundred pages organized into five chapters, is not an isolated pronouncement: it is the culmination of a process of reflection stretching back more than a decade, which includes the note Antiqua et nova (January 2025), the International Theological Commission's document Quo vadis, humanitas? (March 2026), and the creation of an Interdicasterial Commission on AI (May 2026).
A third way between technological enthusiasm and apocalypse
The title, Magnifica Humanitas ("The Magnificent Humanity"), is already a program. In the face of a public discourse that swings between technological enthusiasm and digital apocalypse, Pope Leo XIV proposes a third way: the defense of a humanity that, created in the image of God, possesses a dignity that no machine will ever be able to match or replace. The document opens with an image that sums up its entire position: "The magnificent humanity that God has created today stands before a decisive choice: to raise a new tower of Babel or to build the city where God and humanity dwell together."
Babel represents the building of power for power's sake: the uniformity that eliminates diversity, the pride that dispenses with God, the efficiency that sacrifices dignity. It is the logic of unbridled competition, of power concentrated in a few hands, of war as an instrument of policy. Jerusalem, by contrast, symbolizes reconstruction from fragility: shared responsibility, listening to the weakest, the recognition that strength comes from the Lord. Pope Leo XIV invites us to choose the path of Jerusalem: "Let us not be afraid to get our hands dirty in the work of our time."
The encyclical follows in the wake of Leo XIII's Rerum novarum (1891), the document with which the Church tried to find a middle ground between savage capitalism and revolutionary socialism in the midst of the Industrial Revolution. "If in his day Leo XIII spoke of 'new things' (rerum novarum), today we cannot simply limit ourselves to repeating his valuable teachings; we must ask God for the wisdom to interpret the great trends of our time, in particular the advances of technology," the Pope writes.
A technology that is not neutral, and the risks the encyclical names
The Vatican starts from a clear premise: AI is neither good nor bad in itself. The encyclical states that technology is not an "antagonistic force with respect to the person" nor "an evil in itself." Nevertheless, it is not neutral: it "takes on the face of whoever conceives it, funds it, regulates it and uses it." The foundation of the entire reflection is the ontological dignity of the human person, created in the image of God, which is "infinite" and unconditional: it does not depend on efficiency, productivity or usefulness. Precisely for that reason, AI must serve the person and not the other way around.
The Pope denounces the transhumanist and posthumanist currents that promise an "enhanced humanity" through technology, warning that these visions, although largely speculative, "alter the collective imagination and steer social, economic and political decisions" toward a dehumanized conception of the human being. In response, the Church proposes a "Christian humanism" that does not reject science or technology "but embraces them with gratitude and realism," and keeps them "with their feet on the ground" within a higher vocation.
The encyclical does not stop at abstract principles. It identifies very concrete risks: the military use of AI, the concentration of power in a few corporations, the impact on work, the invisible labor of millions of people in the Global South, disinformation and manipulation, the protection of minors, the environmental impact and new forms of digital colonialism. For each of these areas, the Pope offers criteria for discernment inspired by the Church's Social Doctrine.
The Vatican presentation and the encyclical’s place in the global debate
The presentation of the encyclical was an event in itself. The panel at the Vatican included Christopher Olah, cofounder of Anthropic, one of the most promising startups in AI, which had refused to give the United States government a "free hand" in using its models during the invasion of Iran. Olah's presence was read as a gesture of openness to dialogue with the industry, but it also drew criticism: some saw a contradiction between the text's denunciation of the concentration of private technological power and the invitation of one of its leading representatives. Olah, however, justified his participation by acknowledging that the technology sector needs exactly the kind of conversation the text promotes: "We need moral voices that incentives cannot bend. We need more sectors of the world to do what His Holiness is doing: take this seriously."
The publication of Magnifica Humanitas puts the Vatican in a unique position in the global debate on AI. While the G7 is stuck on international rules for AI and the U.S. Congress struggles to produce comprehensive federal legislation, the Holy See has broken the silence with a document that aspires to be a "moral voice" in a debate dominated by economic and geopolitical interests.
The central message is one of hope. The encyclical closes with Mary's Magnificat, which sees God's invisible work amid the contradictions of history: "The age of AI, too, can be a passage in which the Spirit brings the civilization of love to maturity in our lives." In the face of technological acceleration, the Vatican proposes pause, reflection and dialogue. In the face of the concentration of power, it proposes subsidiarity and participation. In the face of war, it proposes peace and justice. In the face of domination, it proposes service.
In a world where AI is being developed at a dizzying speed with scarce ethical counterweights, the voice of the Vatican, a voice that represents neither economic nor geopolitical interests but a tradition of reflection on the person and the common good, takes on singular relevance. As Olah wrote, "the Pope speaks to governments that move too slowly, to companies that can choose whether to suffer technical complexity or govern it, to universities struggling to work as a system, to civil society struggling to be heard where laws do not reach, and to individuals who stop asking whether what 'the system says' is also what is just."
