VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican’s leader issued a major call Monday for stronger oversight of artificial intelligence technology, urging developers to prioritize humanity’s welfare instead of financial gain in a comprehensive document addressing the future of human society.
Pope Leo XIV’s inaugural teaching letter, titled “Magnifica Humanitas” (Magnificent Humanity), has drawn significant attention since the first American-born Vatican leader declared artificial intelligence the greatest challenge confronting people today shortly after taking office.
The document strongly criticized the “culture of power” fueling competition in AI development, particularly in creating advanced remote warfare capabilities. The Vatican leader stated it was “not permissible” to allow AI systems to make irreversible, deadly decisions, creating another point of tension with the Trump administration’s efforts to reduce AI development restrictions.
Technology industry professionals, academic researchers, and Catholic ethics experts believe this document will serve as a crucial reference point in AI policy discussions for lawmakers, scientists, and the general public. The statement arrives as rapid technological advances raise concerns about AI replacing human employment and cognitive abilities.
“It lends itself to people who are at the forefront of these tools and able to see the incredible things that they’re able to do, to have questions about their own ‘What does it mean to be human?’” said Taylor Black, a Microsoft AI executive and director of Catholic University of America’s AI institute.
The Vatican leader presented the document at a Monday launch event featuring Anthropic’s co-founder, a company currently engaged in legal disputes with the Trump administration regarding access to its AI systems. The Vatican included Anthropic as part of its ongoing decade-long initiative to engage Silicon Valley companies in discussions about AI’s human impact.
However, the document repeatedly criticized the dangerous concentration of power and information control among a small number of private sector entities, particularly regarding risks to children and vulnerable populations, while demanding external regulatory oversight.
“It is not enough to invoke ethics in the abstract; robust legal frameworks, independent oversight, informed users and a political system that does not abdicate its responsibility are required,” he wrote. “A more moral AI is not enough if that morality is determined by a few.”
The Vatican leader made multiple appeals to AI developers and regulatory officials to pause and consider their actions’ implications. He encouraged them to apply ethical and spiritual principles when choosing to work for humanity’s benefit rather than personal gain or power.
AI competitors OpenAI and Anthropic rank as the second- and third-most valuable U.S. private companies, each worth hundreds of billions of dollars, exceeding many nations’ economic output.
In a systematic approach, the mathematics-educated Vatican leader examined Catholic social teaching history and applied its fundamental principles — justice, solidarity, work dignity, and universal resource distribution — to digital transformation.
“I am convinced that this will prove to be a defining document for our era, a profound and prophetic document,” said Paolo Carozza, law professor at Notre Dame Law School and chair of the Meta oversight board.
“Pope Leo is offering a clear, comprehensive, and coherent voice urging us to take responsibility for constructing a world in which technology will serve humans rather than degrade them,” he said.
In particularly forceful sections, the Vatican leader condemned how AI has accelerated war’s “normalization” by reducing sensitivity to its consequences. While not identifying specific conflicts, he referenced “opposing imperialisms, between powers that wish to preserve their supremacy, and those that aspire to seize that supremacy.”
He required transparency and accountability from AI developers to ensure clear command chains when ordering AI-assisted military strikes. The Vatican leader declared the Catholic Church’s “just war” doctrine, which establishes specific criteria for justified force, now “outdated” due to warfare’s technological evolution.
The document was signed May 15, marking 135 years since “Rerum Novarum” (Of New Things) publication, the most significant teaching document from the current leader’s inspiration and namesake, Pope Leo XIII. That earlier document addressed worker rights, capitalism’s limitations, and state and employer obligations during the Industrial Revolution.
That foundational text established modern Catholic social thought, and the current Vatican leader referenced it early in his tenure regarding the AI revolution, which he believes presents similar existential questions as the Industrial Revolution did over a century ago. “Magnifica Humanitas” continues a century-long tradition of Vatican leaders adapting “Rerum Novarum” to contemporary social issues, frequently emphasizing work’s dignity for human development.
AI generates both existential concerns and optimistic possibilities amid intensifying debates about whether it will enhance humanity or become a harmful force that diminishes human intelligence while eliminating millions of well-paying positions.
“The pursuit of greater profits cannot justify choices that systematically sacrifice jobs, because the human person is an end, not a means, and the economic order must remain subordinate to human dignity and the common good,” the Vatican leader wrote.
The document extended concerns about preserving human dignity in labor to include the first-ever Vatican apology for the Holy See’s role in legitimizing slavery.
Previous Vatican leaders have apologized for Christians’ participation in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. However, no Vatican leader has previously publicly acknowledged or apologized for the role Vatican leaders played in granting European rulers explicit permission to subjugate and enslave “infidels.”
Vatican representatives declined to identify specific contributors to the document. However, Vatican and church officials have maintained dialogue with Silicon Valley technology companies for ten years. Near the end of his leadership, Pope Francis increasingly spoke about AI and its human risks.
The decision to include Anthropic at the Vatican launch drew criticism from some who viewed it as Vatican endorsement of the AI company.
In February, the Trump administration prohibited all U.S. agencies from using Anthropic’s technology after the company refused to grant the U.S. military unrestricted access. Anthropic, which markets itself as the AI company prioritizing safety and risk reduction in its research, is currently pursuing legal action against the administration.
Brian Boyd, U.S. faith liaison for the nonprofit Future of Life Institute, interpreted Anthropic’s co-founder Christopher Olah’s inclusion as comparable to a Vatican audience with a world leader: recognition rather than endorsement.
“I think it’s more like a recognition of (how) this is an extremely powerful company that’s currently winning this race to replace human workers,” Boyd said.
Anthropic represents an “enormous corporation that is taking onto itself an enormous risk and responsibility,” Boyd continued, but noted the company has “demonstrated genuine goodwill and integrity and interest in dialogue.”
