Magnifica Humanitas

Magnifica Humanitas is a letter from Pope Leo XIV about artificial intelligence, published on 25 May 2026. It is his first encyclical, a formal teaching document of the Catholic Church. It has no legal force, but it spells out what the Church expects from those who build and use AI, for example that someone stays answerable when software helps decide who gets a job or a loan.

What does it say about AI?

The encyclical has 245 numbered paragraphs. The first two chapters set out Catholic social teaching; the later ones apply it to technology, work, communication and war. On the technology itself it is modest: "current AI systems are more 'cultivated' than 'built'", and their "internal representations and computational processes" remain "at present, unknown" (§98). AI imitates some functions of human intelligence without experience or a moral conscience, and its learning is "a form of statistical adaptation based on data and feedback" (§99).

What does it ask for?

• Responsibility. The encyclical warns that decisions about "employment, credit, access to public services or even a person's reputation" risk being fully handed to automated systems (§102). Responsibility must be "clearly defined at every stage", from the people who design a system to those who rely on it, and someone must be able to justify, monitor, challenge and put right a decision (§105).
• No neutral tools. AI is not morally neutral, because every system embodies choices in "what it measures, ignores and optimizes" (§104).
• Less concentrated power. AI amplifies the power of those who already have money, expertise and data, and ownership of data "cannot be left solely in private hands" (§108). Making AI more moral through alignment is not enough "if that morality is determined by a few" (§107). The Pope calls this "disarming" AI: freeing it "from monopolistic control" (§110).
• Work. Protecting jobs "must remain the general rule", and higher profits cannot justify choices that "systematically sacrifice jobs" (§152). Financial assistance to the poor cannot be the only answer, because the aim is that people live with dignity from their own work (§149).
• It also names the energy and water use of AI (§101) and asks for "the most rigorous ethical constraints" on AI in warfare (§197).

Some of these points are already law in the EU for certain decisions, such as a person who can be held to account and a way to challenge an automated outcome: see human-in-the-loop and explainable AI.

How was it presented?

Leo XIV signed the encyclical on 15 May 2026, the 135th anniversary of Rerum Novarum, Leo XIII's 1891 encyclical on labour in the first industrial revolution; he had said that document was a main reason for his choice of name. On 25 May it was presented in the Vatican's Synod Hall. The speakers included Chris Olah, co-founder of Anthropic. In his remarks he said that every frontier AI lab, Anthropic included, works under incentives "that can sometimes conflict with doing the right thing", and welcomed critics from outside the industry. Simon Willison called the text "some of the clearest writing I've seen on the ethics of integrating AI into modern society".