Pope Leo XIV's First Encyclical Tackles AI and Human Dignity

The Vatican released Pope Leo XIV's first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, on 25 May 2026, dedicating the document entirely to artificial intelligence and the protection of human dignity. The release came at the Synod Hall in Rome, presented alongside an unexpected guest: Anthropic co-founder Christopher Olah.

The title translates roughly as “Magnificent Humanity”, and the document sets out the clearest position any pope has taken on AI. Leo XIV signed it on 15 May, the 135th anniversary of Rerum Novarum, Pope Leo XIII's landmark 1891 encyclical on labour and capital. The historical nod is deliberate. Where Rerum Novarum addressed the social rupture of the industrial revolution, Magnifica Humanitas attempts something similar for the AI age.

The central argument

According to coverage from Vatican News and the National Catholic Reporter, the pope writes that promoting technology “at the expense of human dignity” reflects an “eclipse of the sense of what it means to be human.” The encyclical calls for a renewed understanding of human identity grounded in spiritual and moral principles, and pushes back firmly against transhumanist claims that human nature can be redesigned through technological enhancement.

The framing is striking. Leo argues that the present challenge is not technological but anthropological. The question is not what AI can do, but what kind of person it is being built to serve.

The unusual co-presenter

The choice of presenters drew attention. Christopher Olah is a founding figure at Anthropic, the AI safety company behind the Claude models. His presence at a Vatican press conference signalled that the encyclical is not a blanket condemnation of the industry. Joining Olah on the panel were Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith; Cardinal Michael Czerny, prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development; Anna Rowlands of Durham University; and Léocadie Lushombo of Santa Clara University.

That panel composition matters. The Vatican brought a serving AI executive into the room to discuss its own teaching document. It is hard to think of a clearer signal that the church wants to engage with the technology rather than retreat from it.

What the encyclical actually asks for

The document engages with labour displacement, surveillance, the erosion of attention, and what Leo calls the temptation to outsource moral judgment to machines. It does not call for prohibition. It calls for guardrails and a renewed insistence that AI must serve the human person rather than reshape what a person is.

Coverage in NBC News, on NPR, and at Axios has framed Magnifica Humanitas as the Catholic Church's most substantive engagement with AI to date, and the most theologically pointed.

It also forces a question most AI coverage politely avoids. What kind of human being are these systems being built for? The encyclical does not pretend to have a complete answer. It insists, with some force, that the question is the right one to ask.