Pope Leo XIV has officially issued his first major encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, taking direct aim at the rapid rise of artificial intelligence and its threat to human dignity. We have been tracking the Vatican’s growing anxiety over Silicon Valley for years, but this 82-page teaching document marks their most aggressive stance yet.

The Chicago-born pontiff, who holds a degree in mathematics, warned on Monday that AI risks making civilization itself “less human” by hollowing out the middle class and concentrating power. He explicitly called for the “disarming” of AI to prevent a geopolitical and commercial race for larger datasets and more powerful algorithms.

I find it fascinating that the Pope chose his name to invoke Pope Leo XIII, who guided the Catholic Church through the Industrial Revolution back in 1891. Now, the leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics is trying to pull off a similarly ambitious feat for the AI era.

The Vatican Rejects AI Warfare and the ‘Just War’ Theory

In unusually direct language, the encyclical takes a sledgehammer to modern military strategies. “There exists no algorithm capable of making war morally acceptable,” the document states.

We recently watched the Pentagon integrate AI-assisted targeting systems like Maven into military exercises, making the Pope’s warnings incredibly timely. Leo also took the opportunity to dismiss the “just war” theory as outdated, a move that directly clashes with the Trump administration’s religious justifications for the Iran war.

The pontiff made it clear that entrusting lethal decisions to autonomous weapons systems is “not permissible.” He argued that these technologies have simply made starting a war far too feasible.

Silicon Valley Meets the Holy See

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of Monday’s Vatican rollout was the presence of Chris Olah, co-founder of AI giant Anthropic. We recently analyzed how the startup is navigating the market in our Technology Update: Anthropic Files to Go Public, Setting Stage for Huge I.P.O., and their Vatican appearance shows just how deep their cultural reach has become.

Olah admitted at the presentation that AI companies operate within “incentives and constraints that can sometimes conflict with doing the right thing.” He welcomed the Vatican’s ethical guardrails to help push the industry in a better direction.

I should point out that while Anthropic brands itself as a “human-first” company, it is currently locked in a legal battle with the Trump administration over military access to its models. Cardinal Michael Czerny was quick to clarify to CBS News that dialogue with Olah does not equal a Vatican endorsement.

“We dialogue with anyone,” Czerny said. “We don’t endorse.”

Apologies for the Past and Warnings of New Slavery

Beyond the digital world, the Pope issued an unprecedented apology for the Vatican’s historical role in the transatlantic slave trade. He called the Church’s past complicity “a wound in Christian memory” and sincerely asked for pardon.

But we see him linking this dark history directly to modern tech exploitation. Leo warned of “new forms of slavery” supporting the AI boom, pointing to traumatized content moderators and children mining rare earth minerals.

“The bodies of these people are scarred, injured and worn down so that computational flow may continue uninterruptedly,” the Pope wrote. He urged governments to establish robust legal frameworks and independent oversight rather than abdicating their responsibilities to tech monopolies.

I agree with Czerny’s observation that society is suffering from a sort of spiritual paralysis when it comes to tech. If we continue to treat these algorithms as a substitute for God, we are simply building new idols.