Since his earliest days in the job, Pope Leo XIV has made talking about AI a priority of his papacy. On Monday, he released his first encyclical under the name Magnifica Humanitas (which translates to magnificent humanity) -- a powerful 42,300-word document calling for regulation of the technology and a moral framework that protects humanity for generations to come.

The 70-year-old American pope, who is a mathematician by training, was elected to the papacy in May 2025 and has made "the safeguarding of the human person in the time of artificial intelligence," as the encyclical's subhead reads, a central tenet of his first year in the role.

The document's publication arrives at a moment when many are already comparing it to the industrial revolution in terms of its impact on our work and ways of life. AI companies, including OpenAI and Anthropic, are growing and improving the capabilities of their models at extraordinary rates, stoking the fires of the ongoing debate about whether AI will be more beneficial or harmful to society.

Amid all of this, Pope Leo identifies AI as "a valuable tool that requires vigilance," challenging the concentration of power among tech companies and addressing developers directly in places. The document is broad scope, calling for caution in deploying AI in warfare and the workplace, and it will likely become a cornerstone text as policymakers and tech companies hammer out their strategies for building and regulating the technology in the coming years. 

One message in the text that's already drawing attention is Pope Leo's call to "disarm AI." While this might sound like a warning against the military use of artificial intelligence, it goes much further than that.

"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. It means freeing technology from monopolistic control and opening it to discussion and debate, therefore making it human-friendly and restoring it to the plurality of human cultures and ways of life."

What the pope's encyclical says about our use of AI

This encyclical is more than just a message to tech companies and the Catholic Church. Instead, the pope seems to be addressing all of humanity, prioritizing "equal dignity of all human beings," "the supreme value of human rights," and "building a common good." For Catholics and non-Catholics alike, Magnifica Humanitas presents ideas for people across the globe to rally around as AI becomes an ever-increasing presence in our lives.

The pope cautions against allowing those who control AI to dictate and impose the ethical frameworks for governing the technology. Instead, he says, the ethics of AI should be subjected to "shared standards of social justice" and openly discussed among all people. "A more moral AI is not enough if that morality is determined by a few," he writes. In other words, we should all get to have a say about the role of AI in our world.

He also has thoughts about how we should approach our own use of AI. The speed and simplicity of using AI tools might be appealing, he says. But they can also "encourage excessive reliance and the search for ready-made answers, and weaken personal creativity and judgment."

AI's imitation of positive human communication can be engaging and even helpful at times, he adds. "However, for less discerning users, it can also be misleading, creating the illusion of a relationship with a real personal subject." This is particularly risky, he adds, when the imitation of care and support occurs in contexts where real human bonds are lacking.

"Here, the danger is not so much that a person may believe they are communicating with another person, but rather that they may gradually lose the very desire to form genuine human connections," writes the pope.

Why does the pope care about AI?

To understand the extent of the pope's interest in AI, we first need to look at his choice of name. His decision to go by Pope Leo XIV harks back to Pope Leo XIII, who held the papacy at the time of the industrial revolution and wrote an encyclical called Rerum Novarum on capital and labor.

The current Pope Leo is in many ways continuing the work of his namesake, according to Brian Boyd, US faith liaison at The Future of Life Institute.

"Leo is developing the tradition of Catholic social teaching on asking how can we, as a society, serve the common good better -- recognizing that AI is the most important technology that we have in the last couple of centuries, possibly last couple of 1,000 years, for how it's going to affect how we live together," said Boyd, speaking with CNET ahead of the encyclical's publication.

In the past year, the pope has spoken about AI in the context of the protection of children, what he calls "the sacred nature of the human face and voice," and concerns about workers' rights, Boyd added. Pope Leo has made a point of addressing the tech industry directly, including in his encyclical, where he says developers "bear a particular ethical and spiritual responsibility, for every design choice reflects a vision of humanity."

Sometimes, he's faced backlash to this stance. Back in November, for example, when the pope addressed the Builders AI Forum, venture capitalist Marc Andreessen mocked him publicly -- although his use of memes fell flat when many, including some in Silicon Valley, agreed that the pope had a point.

"It was fascinating to see not just Catholics, [but] people of goodwill from all different stripes, saying, why are you upset about someone pointing out what should be common sense, but outside of certain niches is just utterly ignored?" Boyd said.

The fact that Leo is the first American pope also likely plays a role in how and why he's addressing the big US-based tech companies, Boyd added. While he was born in the US, he spent many years working for the Catholic Church in Latin America, giving him an understanding of both America's self-perception and the global view of the country 

"That dual perspective really makes him ideally suited to both address people in Silicon Valley and also to represent the rest of the world in a way that's deeply needed, because... a lot of these voices aren't listened to, aren't cared for," he said.

The pope might not have the power of governments to regulate AI companies and hold them accountable in a way that affects their ability to do business and their bottom line, but that doesn't mean his soft power should be underestimated. Earlier this month, he created a Commission on AI designed to convene leaders in the name of promoting human flourishing, and the Vatican's moral authority could well carry significant weight as regulation continues to develop.