POPE LEO XIV will today launch a papal encyclical on Artificial Intelligence alongside the co-founder of the leading AI company Anthropic.
In what will be a first for a pontiff, Leo will personally launch the encyclical at the Vatican.
A papal encyclical is a letter from the pope which is primarily addressed to bishops, but also to the world at large.
Encyclicals are part of the pope’s teaching authority and in recent times, act as a way for the Catholic Church to comment on and offer guidance on contemporary issues.
Leo’s first encyclical will be titled Magnifica Humanitas (Magnificent Humanity) and will centre on “the protection of the human person in the age of artificial intelligence”.
Pope Leo XIV says the AI age and our response to it is an essential theme for the Church, as she seeks to help everyone grow to full maturity.https://t.co/KnGLAKFxR1 pic.twitter.com/8IgpWcgONw
— Vatican News (@VaticanNews) May 22, 2026
It’s understood two Irish natives have had a role to play in penning the encyclical: Monsignor Paul Tighe, secretary of the Dicastery for Culture and Education; and Father Brendan Maguire, a former technology executive who is now a parish priest in Silicon Valley.
Fr Maguire helped Anthropic to write “Claude’s constitution”, which is Anthropic’s code of ethics for its Claude AI chatbot.
‘Defence of human dignity’
It’s a topic Leo has spoken of since day one of his papacy.
In his first address to the College of Cardinals, Leo expanded on why he chose that particular papal name and remarked:
“Pope Leo XIII in his historic encyclical Rerum Novarum addressed the social question in the context of the first great industrial revolution.”
“In our own day, the Church offers to everyone the treasury of her social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defence of human dignity, justice and labour.”
And in an address to journalists the following day, Leo said the media’s “mission” of creating “spaces for dialogue and discussion” is “ever more necessary” due to AI.
Later in his first week as pontiff, Leo met with the Vatican’s diplomatic corps and again called for people to be “truthful” and “ethical” in their use of AI.
Since then, he has spoken out against the use of AI in warfare and has also urged priests to avoid using AI when writing homilies.
In an address to students and staff at Sapienza University in Rome this month, Leo called for society to “keep a watchful eye on the development and application of artificial intelligence in both military and civilian contexts”.
He said the use of AI cannot be used to “absolve humans of responsibility for their choices and do not exacerbate the tragedy of conflicts”.
He added: “What is happening in Ukraine, Gaza and the Palestinian territories, Lebanon and Iran illustrates the inhuman evolution of the relationship between war and new technologies into a spiral of annihilation.”
And on the eve of the encyclical being launched, Leo met with participants in the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, where he called for AI to be “place at the authentic service of humanity”.
Leo warned of the “unbridled promotion and implementation of technology at the expense of human dignity” and added:
“It is in this sense that the challenge we currently face is not technological, but anthropological, and it is my hope that the Encyclical Letter to be published within a few days will contribute to answering this challenge.”
As evidenced by the unbridled promotion and implementation of technology at the expense of human dignity, we are truly experiencing an eclipse of the sense of what it means to be human. It is imperative to recover an understanding of the true meaning and grandeur of humanity as…
— Pope Leo XIV (@Pontifex) May 22, 2026
Anthropic
Meanwhile, launching the encyclical alongside the co-founder of Anthropic, Christopher Olah, is a move that could anger US president Donald Trump, with whom Leo has had several run-ins.
In March, Anthropic said it had been left with “no choice” but to challenge in court the Pentagon’s formal designation of the artificial intelligence firm as a risk to US national security.
The dispute erupted after Anthropic infuriated Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth by insisting its technology should not be used for mass surveillance or fully autonomous weapons systems.
Washington hit back, saying the Pentagon operates within the law and that contracted suppliers cannot dictate terms on how their products are used.
The Vatican and AI
This is also far from the first time the Church has weighed in on AI.
In 2016, the late Pope Francis launched Minerva Dialogues, a series discussions and gatherings between the Church and leading figures from Silicon Valley.
And in 2020, the Vatican launched the Rome Call for AI Ethics, which outlines core principles for AI regulation.
Microsoft, IMB and Cisco are among the companies to sign on to the initiative.
And in 2024, when Francis became the first pope to address the G7 summit, he used his speech to warn against the use of AI in war.
In January 2025, the Vatican then released Antiqua et nova (“Ancient and new”), which warned against deepfakes, privacy concerns, the environmental impact of AI, the risk to people’s jobs, and the use of autonomous weapons.
Francis even spoke in his memoir about becoming the subject of an AI deepfake.
“I myself have ended up as the object of one,” said Francis, referring to images such as the one above.