Pope Leo XIV has published his first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, calling for meaningful oversight of artificial intelligence and an end to the global AI arms race. The 200-page document was presented alongside Anthropic co-founder Chris Olah, signalling an unusual alignment between the Catholic Church and one of the leading voices in AI safety.
The pope argued that AI systematically amplifies the power of those who already control economic resources, data, and expertise, enabling elites to shape information, influence democratic processes, and entrench inequality. He called for oversight rooted in participation from affected communities rather than governance by a small, opaque elite.
Notre Dame Law professor Paolo Carozza, chair of the Meta Oversight Board, told TechCrunch that AI-driven misinformation had corroded society’s capacity to distinguish truth, with serious consequences for democratic politics.
The encyclical arrives days after President Trump delayed signing an executive order that would have given government oversight of new AI models before release — reportedly following pressure from former White House AI adviser and venture capitalist David Sacks. Leo XIV drew explicit parallels to Pope Leo XIII’s 1891 Rerum Novarum, which addressed industrial-era power concentration, framing today’s AI moment as an equivalent civilisational inflection point.
