Pope Leo XIV Calls for Disarming AI in First Encyclical of His Pontificate
May 25, 2026 – 10:34 am
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In his first encyclical, Magnifica humanitas, Pope Leo XIV advocates for the disarmament of artificial intelligence (AI), arguing that it has shifted its focus from serving humanity to dominating it.
“To disarm means discrediting the assumption that technical power automatically confers the right to govern,” the pope writes.
"To disarm does not mean rejecting technology, but preventing it from dominating humanity."
This document is a significant move by Leo, the first American pope and former mathematics major from Villanova, marking the first time a pope has structured an entire foundational letter around an emerging technology rather than a traditional social or doctrinal issue.
Central Arguments:
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Concentration: The Pope advocates for making AI more "human-friendly" and freeing it from "monopolistic control", directly targeting the half-dozen US firms leading the tech’s frontier.
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Warfare: He is unequivocal about AI in warfare, stating, "No algorithm can make war morally acceptable."
"AI does not remove the intrinsic inhumanity of conflict, indeed it can only bring about conflict more quickly and render it more impersonal."
Launch Event:
The encyclical was launched at the Vatican Synod Hall with Christopher Olah, co-founder and head of interpretability research at Anthropic, speaking alongside cardinals. Anthropic’s Mythos model has raised global security concerns due to its ability to discover thousands of zero-days across major operating systems. The company has faced clashes with the Trump administration over the use of its technology in warfare and surveillance, directly aligning with the Pope’s stance on AI.
Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic convert close to early OpenAI investor Peter Thiel, acknowledged the encyclical’s influence when asked about it at a press briefing on May 19th:
“When the leader of the world’s largest Christian denomination speaks on an issue like that, it’s certainly going to have some influence… I’m sure it’ll contain a lot of insights."