Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical, “Magnifica Humanitas,” will be published May 25, addressing Artificial Intelligence and the protection of human dignity, the Vatican has announced. The encyclical, the title of which is Latin for “Magnificent Humanity,” was signed by the pope on May 15, the 135th anniversary of “Rerum Novarum,” Pope Leo XIII’s foundational 1891 social encyclical on labor and capital written during the first Industrial Revolution.
In an unprecedented first, Pope Leo XIV will be present in person at the Vatican press conference to mark the publication of the social encyclical, along with a tech founder from one of the world’s fastest growing Artificial Intelligence companies. Christopher Olah, co-founder of the Artificial Intelligence company Anthropic, which developed the Artificial Intelligence large language model (LLM) named Claude, will speak on a panel presenting the document at the Vatican’s Synod Hall on May 25 at 11:30 a.m local time. Also joining the panel will be Anna Rowlands, a British theologian specializing in Catholic social teaching, and Léocadie Lushombo, a professor of theological ethics at the Jesuit School of Theology at Santa Clara University. Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, Cardinal Michael Czerny, Pope Leo XIV and Cardinal Pietro Parolin are also set to take part.
Pope Leo XIV has tied the issue closely to his choice of papal name and to the church’s social teaching tradition. Two days after his election in May 2025, he said the church was responding to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of Artificial Intelligence that pose new challenges for the defense of human dignity, justice and labor. The first American pope and a former mathematics major has returned repeatedly to the topic in speeches, messages and interviews during his first year.
His public warnings have covered education, work, creativity and human relationships. He told teenagers to use Artificial Intelligence “in such a way that if it disappeared tomorrow, you would still know how to think,” and told legislators from 68 countries that Artificial Intelligence is a tool meant to serve human beings, not replace them. He has also warned priests not to use chatbots to write homilies and raised concerns about the technology’s potential effect on children’s “intellectual and neurological development.”
The pope’s 2026 message for the 60th World Day of Social Communications, published in January, has been his most developed text on Artificial Intelligence and human dignity so far. In that message, he said that simulated voices, faces, wisdom, empathy and friendship can intrude on the deepest level of communication, that of human relationships. In a December speech to participants in an Artificial Intelligence conference, he also said that access to vast amounts of data should not be confused with the ability to derive meaning and value from it, and said young people must be taught to use these tools with their own intelligence in the search for truth.
