Overview
- The Vatican published the nearly 43,000-word encyclical Magnifica Humanitas on Monday, May 25, 2026, and held a public presentation at the Vatican with Pope Leão XIV and AI figures including Anthropic cofounder Christopher Olah.
- The document formally forbids entrusting lethal or irreversible decisions to artificial systems and calls for the strictest ethical limits on AI use in war.
- It demands robust legal frameworks, independent oversight, informed users, and at times a slower pace of AI adoption to protect human dignity and the common good.
- By signing the text on May 15 to mark the 135th anniversary of Rerum Novarum, the pope links AI policy to long‑standing Catholic concerns about work, urging protections for workers facing automation.
- The encyclical warns that concentrated private tech power and unregulated data ownership risk opacity, manipulation and inequality and signals the Holy See will press governments and industry for international cooperation and governance reforms.