By National Catholic Reporter
Publication Date: 2026-05-25 00:00:00
With the most authoritative document of his young pontificate to date, Pope Leo XIV directed the moral gaze of the Catholic Church on the rapid pace of technological development that threatens human solidarity. Using AI as an entry point, Leo used his first encyclical: Magnifica Humanitas (“Magnificent Humanity”), on protecting the human person in the age of artificial intelligence, to articulate the Church’s position on a wide range of contemporary crises, including war, modern slavery, wealth inequality, the erosion of democracy and the devaluation of human capabilities.
Leo does not target a specific type of AI, but rather explores the impact of technologies that “merely imitate certain functions of human intelligence” and distinguishes between humans and machines.
“So-called artificial intelligences have no experiences, have no bodies, feel neither joy nor pain, and do not mature…”