The Pope makes AI a matter of conscience – and warns about the power of the few

On Monday, Pope Leo XIV presented his very first encyclical. It is not about poverty, war or climate alone, but about artificial intelligence. The document «Magnifica Humanitas» – «Magnificent Humanity» – runs to 82 pages and was presented in person at the Vatican on May 25. It is the first time a pope has personally unveiled an encyclical to the public.

The choice of subject is itself news. When the head of the Catholic Church spends his weightiest teaching document on AI, the technology debate is lifted from conference stages and quarterly reports onto a moral and global plane. For corporate leaders this is no curiosity from Rome. It is a signal that expectations for how companies govern AI are now being shaped by far more than engineers and investors.

The power that can rival governments

At the core of the pope's message is the concentration of power. He warns against «a race for ever more powerful algorithms and larger datasets, driven by the desire to secure geopolitical or commercial dominance». The influence of IT companies, the encyclical says, «can rival that of governments». The pope calls for a «disarming» of artificial intelligence and warns that the technology risks making civilization «less human».

This is not theology floating above business reality. It is the same concern already present in boardrooms: a handful of US vendors control the models, the cloud and the prices on which a growing number of critical work processes depend. When a moral authority with more than a billion followers names that dependency, the argument for spreading risk and setting hard requirements on suppliers becomes harder to dismiss as technical nitpicking.

Anthropic stood next to the pope

The most striking detail was who stood beside the pope as the document was presented: Christopher Olah, a co-founder of the AI company Anthropic. He acknowledged that AI companies operate under «incentives and constraints that can sometimes conflict with doing the right thing».

The admission is notable because it comes from inside the industry, not from a critic. It confirms what boards and audit committees have long suspected: that commercial pressure can pull in a different direction than responsible use. For a CISO or a compliance officer it is a reminder that a vendor's own intentions are not enough as a guarantee. Contracts, audit rights and human control have to be written down.

Jobs, war and what cannot be delegated

The encyclical warns that AI could hollow out the labor market and erode the middle class, and that people risk being reduced to data points rather than treated with dignity. On war the pope is uncompromising: «There exists no algorithm capable of making war morally acceptable.» He dismisses the classical doctrine of «just war» as outdated, and demands that the use of AI in warfare be subject to «the most rigorous ethical constraints».

For leaders weighing whether to let agents make decisions, there is a practical lesson here: some choices cannot be delegated to a model without a human bearing responsibility. «The pressing duty», the pope writes, is «to remain profoundly human».

What leaders should do

The encyclical is not a regulation and changes no legal obligations overnight. But it changes the climate around AI. It lands in the final stretch before the EU AI Act gains full force and while Norway shapes its own implementing law. It gives employees, customers and owners a shared language for questioning how a company uses the technology.

The practical advice is sober: a board should be able to answer three questions. How dependent are we on a single vendor, and what is the plan if it fails or changes its prices? Which decisions do we let models make, and where does a human carry the responsibility? And can we explain our use of AI in a way employees and customers recognize? A document from the Vatican answers none of them. But it makes it more expensive not to have the answers ready.

Sources and media

Primary source and verification: CBS News, «Pope Leo calls for 'disarming' of AI in technology-focused encyclical», May 25, 2026 – source_url: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pope-leo-ai-encyclical-artificial-intelligence/

Cross-verified against CNN («Pope Leo warns of AI fueling warfare in first major theological document», May 25, 2026), The Washington Post and the official encyclical «Magnifica Humanitas» published by the Vatican (Holy See) on May 25, 2026.

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