{"id":692514,"date":"2026-05-25T11:33:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T11:33:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/692514\/"},"modified":"2026-05-25T11:33:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T11:33:11","slug":"pope-leo-warns-of-ai-fueling-warfare-in-first-major-theological-document","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/692514\/","title":{"rendered":"Pope Leo warns of AI fueling warfare in first major theological document"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Pope Leo XIV says control of artificial intelligence<\/a> must not remain in the hands \u201cof a few\u201d while warning that technology is fueling world conflicts, setting out his proposals in the first major theological document <\/a>of his pontificate<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n

\n These include protecting the distinctive \u201cgrandeur of humanity\u201d amid rapidly changing technology and for the use of AI in warfare to be subject to \u201cthe most rigorous ethical constraints.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n While the encyclical focuses on AI, it is a text that goes beyond technological questions and touches on crises facing humanity. Pope Leo said that the \u201cjust war\u201d theory \u2013 a four-pronged Christian doctrine stating what conditions justify war \u2013 is \u201cnow outdated,\u201d saying that military force can only be used for \u201cself-defense in the strictest sense.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n He adds that the \u201clitmus test\u201d for social justice is the treatment of migrants and refugees and offered an apology for the church\u2019s legitimizing in slavery and delay in denouncing the scourge.\n <\/p>\n

\n The pope, who has made peace-making a central feature of his pontificate, warns that the use of \u201cforce, violence and weapons\u201d ultimately \u201chas disastrous consequences for civilian populations.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe construction of a world in a state of perpetual conflict is an evil and must be named for what it is,\u201d the pope writes, adding that, \u201cHumanity possesses far more effective and capable tools for promoting human life and resolving conflicts, such as dialogue, diplomacy and forgiveness.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n His opposition to Just War follows remarks by US President JD Vance that the pope \u201cbe careful when he talks about matters of theology\u201d after the Catholic spiritual leader fiercley criticized<\/a> joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran and rebuked world leaders for invoking religious language to rationalize war.\n <\/p>\n

Parallels between AI and \u2018Tower of Babel\u2019<\/p>\n

\n In the text, the pope also calls for a series of principles to be applied to the development of AI, including a fairer distribution of resources, the dignity of the human person, social justice and care for the environment.\n <\/p>\n

\n Drawing on a biblical story, the pope warns that with AI, humanity risks building a \u201cTower of Babel,\u201d which was an attempt for people to \u201cmake a name\u201d for themselves with a single power and one language. The pope says the story is a warning against a plan that \u201cdominates and ultimately dehumanizes,\u201d insisting instead that diverse opinions and groups should contribute to AI\u2019s development.\n <\/p>\n

\n Leo insists that the technology must protect peoples\u2019 jobs and needs to be subject to \u201crobust legal frameworks, independent oversight, informed users and a political system that does not abdicate its responsibility are required.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n An encyclical is traditionally a letter sent by the pope to the bishops and the wider Roman Catholic Church, but recently it has broadened with Pope Francis using the first encyclical of his papacy to address the whole world on protecting the environment.\n <\/p>\n

\n Leo XIV\u2019s document on AI, \u201cMagnifica Humanitas\u201d (\u201cMagnificent Humanity\u201d), is being seen as a similarly landmark text for his papacy, and as addressing an epoch-defining topic which he addressed to Catholics and \u201cevery person of goodwill.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"Pope<\/p>\n

\n Pope Leo has identified AI as a top priority, and he is the first pontiff to personally present an encyclical letter to the world at the Vatican.\n <\/p>\n

\n Past popes have normally handed that role of presenting an encyclical to cardinals or other senior figures. Instead, the pope oversaw the release of the 235-page booklet alongside Chris Olah, a co-founder of Anthropic, an AI company that has been in legal dispute with the Trump administration over the use of its technology in military and defense operations.\n <\/p>\n

\n Olah echoed Pope Leo\u2019s call for greater accountability of AI tycoons on Monday, saying that decisions \u201cshould not be left to people in the industry.\u201d He listed three principles that require a collective resolution \u2013 including a \u201cduty to the global poor,\u201d \u201cmoral imagination and ambition\u201d and the \u201cneed for discernment.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cEvery frontier AI lab, including Anthropic, operates inside a set of incentives and constraints that can sometimes conflict with doing the right thing,\u201d Olah told an audience at the Vatican.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cIf we want this technology to go well, it is enormously important that there be people outside those incentives \u2026 who are willing to be our earnest, thoughtful critics,\u201d he added. \u201cThat is what I see in Magnifica Humanitas.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

\n The pope\u2019s text outlines an approach to AI which neither rejects the opportunities offered by the technology, nor sees it as opening a utopia-style future. His encyclical seeks to offer the resources of Catholic social teaching \u2013 the engagement with political and civic life \u2013 to the discussion on AI. Leo\u2019s prime concern is maintaining the centrality, and unique dignity, of the human person.\n <\/p>\n

\n To that end, the first American pope issues a critique of \u201ctranshumanism,\u201d the idea that technology can help a person overcome physical and biological limitations such as aging, and of \u201cposthumanism,\u201d which questions the distinctiveness of human beings and blurs the boundaries between humans and machines.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe cannot consider AI to be morally neutral,\u201d the pope writes. \u201cEvery technical tool embodies choices and priorities through what it measures, ignores and optimizes, and how it classifies people and situations.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Pope Leo ultimately prescribes the disarmament of AI, not as a means of \u201crejecting technology\u201d but rather \u201cpreventing it from dominating humanity.\u201d That doctrine means \u201cfreeing technology from monopolistic control and opening it to discussion and debate, therefore making it human-friendly.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n The choice of Anthropic for the encyclical unveiling reflects the ongoing tensions between the Chicago-born pope and US President Donald Trump, who has launched a series of criticisms against the pontiff for his stance on the Iran war. The Trump administration has taken a hands-off approach to AI regulation, with the president deciding to postpone signing an executive order<\/a> ensuring government reviews of new AI models, including Anthropic\u2019s Mythos system.\n <\/p>\n

\n Including Olah on the launch platform, however, shows the Vatican is seeking to directly influence those involved with developing the technology, and not to simply be talking from the sidelines. And a Vatican source said that Anthropic\u2019s inclusion is \u201cnot an endorsement, prize, reward or canonization.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Pope Leo has already addressed the topic of AI several times during his year-long papacy, warning against \u201coverly affectionate\u201d chatbots<\/a>, sending a message to tech execs meeting on AI in the Vatican<\/a> and urging priests not to use AI when writing their homilies<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n

\n A few days before the encyclical was released, the pope took the unusual decision to establish a cross-department Vatican commission on AI, which will examine the effects of the technology.\n <\/p>\n

\n The rapid advance of AI may also have been a factor in Leo XIV\u2019s choice of name. Speaking to the College of Cardinals soon after his election<\/a>, the pope pointed out that that his namesake, Leo XIII, was remembered as the pope of Catholic social teaching \u2013 the church\u2019s engagement with public life \u2013 during the time of the industrial revolution.\n <\/p>\n

\n Leo XIII wrote the landmark encyclical, \u201cRerum Novarum,\u201d in 1891, a wide-ranging text addressing workers\u2019 rights, a fair wage and the right to private property. Leo XIV told the cardinals that he hoped to offer the Church\u2019s social teaching in response \u201cto another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence.\u201d He signed his AI encyclical on May 15, 2026, on the same day that Rerum Novarum was released 135 years previously.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe time to talk about AI is now. It is urgent,\u201d Anna Rowlands, a theologian from the University of Durham who spoke along with the pope at the encyclical\u2019s launch, told CNN.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe encyclical helps all of us \u2013 believers and non-believers \u2013 to ask the same fundamental question: what does it mean to be human in an age when human life faces an unprecedented challenge from the development of various technologies \u2026 this text is a rallying cry, a Gospel cry, to build together a civilisation of love and oppose a culture of mere power.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

\n The pope\u2019s encyclical builds on the work already done by the Vatican on AI, including a dialogue with Silicon valley over the last decade and a push for greater regulation. Pope Francis also addressed world leaders on the topic when he became the first pope to speak to the G7 in June 2024.<\/a> The Vatican\u2019s doctrine and education offices last year issued a document highlighting AI-driven misinformation<\/a> including deepfakes, while a theological commission<\/a> released a detailed reflection looking at the threats posed by AI, transhumanism and posthumanism.\n <\/p>\n

\n The Vatican has seen how AI can be used first hand. Pope Francis was the subject of several deepfake images, while Pope Leo revealed he refused to allow a \u201cpapal avatar\u201d of him<\/a> who would hold private audiences and answer questions.\n <\/p>\n

\n But Father Antonio Spadaro, a Vatican official, says Leo\u2019s encyclical is a new moment and marks the \u201cmost significant institutional response\u201d<\/a> to AI by a major global religious body, and perhaps the clearest signal yet that the Vatican intends to do more than issue intelligent warnings from the margins of debate.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Now, the focus is on what happens next. Pope Francis timed his 2015 encyclical on the environment to influence the Paris COP21 climate summit, with the text gaining traction both inside and outside the Cchurch as inspiration for sustainability initiatives.\n <\/p>\n

\n Leo will likely hope that his own text is not simply read and put on a shelf but is a document that can inspire meaningful action.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pope Leo XIV says control of artificial intelligence must not remain in the hands \u201cof a few\u201d while…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":692515,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[62,276,277,49,48,61],"class_list":["post-692514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=692514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692514\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/692515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=692514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=692514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=692514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}