Pope Leo XIV released an 82-page encyclical on May 25 warning that artificial intelligence threatens to make civilization "less human", and calling on governments worldwide to impose strict legal guardrails on the technology before it hollows out the middle class, eliminates jobs by the millions, and normalizes machine-driven warfare.

The document, titled "Magnifica Humanitas", Latin for "Magnificent Humanity", is the first major teaching letter of Leo's pontificate and one of the most ambitious papal statements on technology ever issued. It was presented at the Vatican's Synod Hall with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican Secretary of State, flanking the pope and Anthropic co-founder Christopher Olah seated among the guests.

The Chicago-born pontiff, who holds a degree in mathematics, framed the AI revolution not as a mere policy challenge but as what he called an "anthropological" crisis, one that touches the meaning and purpose of human life itself.

A 43,000-word challenge to Silicon Valley and Washington

At nearly 43,000 words, the encyclical represents one of the highest forms of papal teaching directed at the world's roughly 1.4 billion Catholics. Its scope is broad, but its sharpest edges are reserved for the unchecked race among tech firms and governments to build ever more powerful AI systems. The pope described that competition as "a race for ever more powerful algorithms and larger datasets, driven by the desire to secure geopolitical or commercial dominance."

Leo did not dismiss the technology outright. "Artificial intelligence is a great human achievement," the encyclical states. But it warned that AI could hollow out work, concentrate wealth, deepen inequality, fuel social fragmentation, and normalize AI-driven warfare, all while reducing people to data points managed for efficiency rather than treated with dignity.

The New York Post reported that Leo compared AI's threat to the biblical Tower of Babel, warning it threatens to "normalize an anti-human vision." The pope called for "robust legal frameworks, independent oversight, informed users and a political system that does not abdicate its responsibility."

That language puts the Vatican on a direct collision course with the Trump administration's lighter-touch approach to technology regulation. It also places Leo squarely within a pattern of friction between this pope and the White House, a dynamic that has already produced public clashes over the Iran war and some U.S. officials' religious justifications for it.

The moral neutrality question

One of the encyclical's most pointed assertions is that AI cannot be treated as a morally neutral tool. "We cannot consider AI to be morally neutral," Leo wrote. "Every technical tool embodies choice and priorities through what it measures, ignores, and optimizes."

That line draws a boundary that many in the tech industry will resist. The standard defense from developers, that their products are neutral platforms whose moral character depends on how users deploy them, is rejected head-on. The pope argued instead that the design choices embedded in algorithms carry moral weight from the moment they are written.

Cardinal Michael Czerny, who helped present the document, was careful to frame its purpose. "Please note that the encyclical is not about AI," he told reporters. "It's about the human condition during the time of AI." But he acknowledged the weight of the moment:

"We're overwhelmed. We feel like we actually have nothing to say... and this paralyzes us."

When asked whether AI could become a substitute for God, Czerny did not flinch. "Yes... many things become substitutes for God and we call them idols," he said.

Anthropic at the altar

The presence of Christopher Olah at the Vatican presentation raised eyebrows. Anthropic, the San Francisco-based AI company he co-founded, has cultivated a reputation as a safety-conscious, human-first firm. But its relationship with the U.S. government is complicated. The Trump administration recently listed Anthropic as a supply-chain risk after the company refused to allow the Pentagon to use its technology in automated lethal systems or mass domestic surveillance.

Yet Anthropic's models remain integrated in military and intelligence applications, a tension the encyclical does not resolve but clearly illuminates. The Vatican's decision to invite a self-described atheist from a major AI firm to sit alongside cardinals at the unveiling of a papal teaching document was itself a statement about the Church's willingness to engage secular power on its own terms.

Olah acknowledged the difficulty of his industry's position, saying AI companies operate "inside a set of incentives and constraints that can sometimes conflict with doing the right thing." He expressed hope that dialogue with institutions like the Vatican could "push events in a better direction."

"The questions raised by AI are bigger than the AI research community."

Czerny, asked whether Anthropic's safety-oriented reputation influenced the Vatican's decision to engage, was blunt: "I'm sure it did." But he added a qualifier that the Church would do well to hold itself to: "We dialogue with anyone. We don't endorse."

Just war theory declared "outdated"

Perhaps the most consequential passage for U.S. defense policy is the encyclical's treatment of warfare. Leo declared the centuries-old Catholic "just war" doctrine effectively dead:

"Today, more than ever, without prejudice to the right to self-defense in the strictest sense, it is important to reaffirm that the 'just war' theory, which has all too often been used to justify any kind of war, is now outdated."

He went further: "There exists no algorithm capable of making war morally acceptable."

CBS News has separately observed U.S. forces conducting exercises in Morocco that integrate AI-assisted targeting systems and autonomous technologies, the very kind of military AI deployment the pope's encyclical condemns. The Pentagon's Maven AI platform continues to expand, and the gap between what the Vatican demands and what the U.S. military is building grows wider by the month.

The pope's call for "disarming" AI, stripping it of its capacity to make lethal decisions, will resonate with some conservatives who worry about autonomous weapons eroding human accountability in war. It will alarm others who see AI as essential to maintaining U.S. military superiority against China and Russia. Just The News noted the pope's broader call to rein in AI's power to eliminate jobs and automate warfare.

Vice President Vance had previously described the forthcoming encyclical as a "very, very important document", a signal that at least some in the administration recognize the weight the Vatican still carries on questions of technology and ethics, even when the two sides disagree on specifics.

The slave trade apology

Buried within the AI-focused encyclical is a passage that will generate its own headlines: the first-ever papal apology for the Vatican's role in facilitating and justifying the transatlantic slave trade. Leo called it "a wound in Christian memory."

"For this, in the name of the Church, I sincerely ask for pardon."

The apology is historically significant. Previous popes have expressed regret over slavery in general terms, but Leo's statement directly addresses the institutional Church's complicity, a distinction that matters to historians and to the millions of Catholics of African descent worldwide.

Whether the apology will satisfy critics or simply open a new front of demands remains to be seen. What is clear is that Leo is willing to use the encyclical format, the most authoritative teaching vehicle available to a pope, to confront uncomfortable chapters of Church history alongside forward-looking policy arguments.

The Leo XIII parallel

Leo XIV chose his papal name deliberately. Pope Leo XIII, the last to bear the name, issued the landmark 1891 encyclical "Rerum Novarum", a document that helped guide the Catholic Church through the upheaval of the Industrial Revolution by articulating workers' rights and the moral limits of capitalism. Leo XIV clearly sees himself playing an analogous role for the age of artificial intelligence.

The parallel is instructive but imperfect. Leo XIII wrote at a time when the Church wielded enormous cultural authority across Europe and the Americas. Leo XIV writes from a Vatican that has seen its influence eroded by secularism, scandal, and internal division. His recent personnel decisions have drawn criticism from conservative Catholics who question whether the pontiff's priorities align with their own.

The pope called on the world "to walk together, to listen and to speak and together to find the way for humanity." He added: "Together, we can discern the major questions of our time, and so, the future of humanity."

Those are lofty words. The harder question is whether they translate into anything more than a teaching document that governments, tech firms, and military planners politely acknowledge and quietly ignore. AP News reported on the encyclical's call for robust regulation, while the Washington Times covered the same themes, underscoring the breadth of media attention the document has drawn.

What conservatives should watch

The encyclical raises questions that cut across partisan lines but land differently on the right. Conservatives who champion free markets may bristle at the pope's call for aggressive government oversight of AI development. Those who prioritize national defense will reject the notion that just war theory is obsolete, especially with China racing to field its own autonomous weapons.

But the document also voices concerns that many on the right share: that Big Tech wields too much unaccountable power, that the destruction of middle-class jobs threatens social stability, and that reducing human beings to data inputs offends the dignity that conservative philosophy has always defended.

Leo's demand that "a political system does not abdicate its responsibility" could just as easily come from a populist Republican senator as from a pope. The question is not whether the concerns are legitimate. They plainly are. The question is whether the Vatican's proposed solutions, more regulation, more international oversight, more institutional control, would actually protect human dignity or simply hand new levers of power to the same bureaucracies that have failed to govern responsibly in every other domain.

Popes issue encyclicals. Governments write laws. And tech companies ship products. "Magnifica Humanitas" is a serious document from a pope who clearly grasps the stakes. But moral authority without enforceable accountability is just a very long letter, and the people building the machines know it.