Pope Leo’s ‘Magnifica humanitas’: AI must serve humanity not concentrate power - Vatican News
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105 Live 100min (Diretta)
Programs<br>Podcast
Pope
Pope Leo XIV
encyclical
artificial intelligence
Magnifica humanitas
Pope Leo’s ‘Magnifica humanitas’: AI must serve humanity not concentrate power
Marking the 135th anniversary of Rerum novarum, Pope Leo XIV releases his first encyclical, entitled ‘Magnifica humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence.’ He appeals for the safeguarding of humanity, promotion of truth, dignity of work, social justice, and peace.
By Isabella Piro
“Humanity, created by God in all its grandeur, is today facing a pivotal choice: either to construct a new Tower of Babel or to build the city in which God and humanity dwell together.”
The opening words of Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical, Magnifica humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence, summarize its underlying reasons and purpose.
Published on Monday, May 25, the Pope signed the encyclical on May 15, the 135th anniversary of the promulgation of Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum novarum.
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25/05/2026
Remaining human in the age of algorithms
Our Editorial Director reflects on Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical ‘Magnifica humanitas,’ in which the Pope calls for technology to advance without causing the human heart to ...
Pope Leo XIV has taken up the legacy of his predecessor, writing a social encyclical which addresses one of the principal challenges of the contemporary age: artificial intelligence.
Divided into five chapters, Magnifica humanitas has an underlying premise: technology is not “a force antagonistic to humanity” (4), nor is it “inherently evil” (9). However, “technology is never neutral, because it takes on the characteristics of those who devise, finance, regulate, and use it.
Therefore, Pope Leo XIV appeals for people to build “for the common good” and to “remain human,” following a courageous mentality of shared responsibility and communion, so that the world “will come to recognize the human heart as the place where God desires to dwell” (16).
Church’s social doctrine
The first chapter—“A Dynamic Approach Faithful to the Gospel”—traces the Social Doctrine of the Church in recent magisterium and the Second Vatican Council, highlighting “its dynamic character” (17). Far from being “a handbook of principles and norms to be applied,” the Church’s social teaching is rather a “theology of communion in history” (27), which guides our reading of events in light of the Gospel. Pope Leo XIV recalls the writings of his predecessors: from Pius XII - the first to use the expression “Social Doctrine of the Church” in his Apostolic Exhortation Menti Nostrae of 1950 - to Pope Francis. He recalled Pope Leo XIII’s Encyclical Rerum Novarum of 1891, which “constitutes a milestone in the development of the Church’s social teaching” (30). In the years following, each successor of Peter “interpreted historical changes according to the Gospel, bringing to light different aspects of a single heritage: the dignity of the person, the value of work, the universal destination of goods, solidarity and subsidiarity, care for creation and the centrality of peace and fraternity” (45).
Safeguarding human dignity
In the second chapter, Pope Leo XIV explores the “Foundations and Principles of the Social Doctrine of the Church”.
These foundations, he says, include the dignity of the person, created in the image and likeness of God. It is important to recall...