VATICAN CITY (RNS) — Pope Leo XIV published on Monday (May 25) what is already being called the keynote document of his papacy, titled “Magnifica Humanitas” (Magnificent Humanity), a sweeping encyclical addressing what he considers a new industrial revolution fueled by artificial intelligence.

While the document extensively reflects on AI and its repercussions on society, war, work and education, its real focus is offering the Catholic Church’s wisdom on what makes humanity, well, human. If the title doesn’t make that priority clear, then the text reinforces it: “Human” is the most repeated meaningful word in the official English version, followed by “social” and “person.”

Leo looks with concern at a culture that sees people as “a means of achieving results, a resource to be used and exploited.” He also warns of certain mindsets, such as transhumanism and posthumanism, that are popular in Silicon Valley and that hope to build a human-machine hybrid world or, worse yet, substitute humanity with machines altogether.

Speaking to journalists after the presentation of the encyclical, the Rev. Brendan McGuire, often referred to as Silicon Valley’s parish priest, explained Leo’s “theology of limitations” in the encyclical, meaning that the limits that define human beings are “not a design fault in our human being – that’s a design feature.”

The pope writes in the encyclical that at the pace with which AI is moving, a document addressing this technology risks becoming obsolete in a matter of months. “But we bring a wisdom concerning the human that our present time desperately needs,” Leo said while presenting the document at the Vatican on Monday, adding that “every person is unique and irreplaceable, a free and intelligent subject with a conscience, capable of seeking God, serving one another, caring for our common home.”

AI-powered robots are being marketed as tireless workers. AI companions are becoming a booming industry. AI is also increasingly being used as a tool for surveillance and warfare. The papal document seeks to recenter this technology around serving people – and not the other way around.

Starting from the centrality of the human person, Leo offers a series of reflections to help guide the world through the challenges and risks posed by AI. Here are five main takeaways from “Magnifica Humanitas”:

1.      Recommends disarming AI by removing it from economic, military and personal interests

Speaking at the Vatican during the presentation of the encyclical, the co-founder of one of the leading AI companies in the world, Anthropic, Christopher Olay, warned that AI development is not necessarily geared toward making humanity better.

Instead, the competition to deliver the most marketable AI product, geopolitical interests and good, old-fashioned egos act as clearer incentives for a technology that has raised over $1.6 trillion in corporate investments and is only expected to grow further.

“Today, the main engines of development are private, often transnational actors, endowed with resources and capacity for action greater than those of many governments,” Leo wrote in the encyclical. That’s why development of AI cannot be left in the hands of a few, wealthy industry leaders, the document reads. Instead, everyone must get involved in shaping AI so that it betters humanity.

“Communities and intermediary organizations must not be reduced to passive recipients of decisions made elsewhere; they must be able to contribute to discernment and oversight,” Leo wrote. Workers, teachers, scientists and faith communities need to be brought into the conversations, he added.

They can’t do it alone, Leo wrote, stating that international organizations and states must also step in to regulate AI, with special attention to the poor and vulnerable.

This means “disarming AI,” Leo wrote, by removing it from “the logic of the arms race,” which today is not only military, but also economic and cognitive.

“Disarming does not mean renouncing technology, but preventing it from dominating humanity. It means removing it from monopolies, making it debatable, refutable, and therefore habitable, restoring within it the plurality of human cultures and ways of life,” he wrote.

2.     Apologizes for slavery (new colonialism and new forms of slavery)

AI also risks generating new forms of colonialism and slavery, Leo wrote. He warns against the “new face” of colonialism, which doesn’t only dominate bodies but also appropriates data, citing health flows, epidemiological profiles, genetic maps and demographic data. 

“When every gesture leaves a trace — movements, purchases, relationships, preferences — a new power is created: the power to profile, predict, and guide behavior, often without people being fully aware of it,” he wrote.

Our information and data are becoming the new “rare earth of power,” Leo wrote, adding that in the hands of few, profit-oriented individuals these represent a new form of colonial dominion.

The pope also highlights the trail of invisible exploitation of humans and the environment that occurs behind the development of AI. From children being forced into mines to gather the minerals necessary for AI development, to employees being monitored to train AI models, we are witnessing the rise of “new forms of slavery,” Leo wrote, “that is deliberately kept hidden.”

He said that without ethical and humanizing guidelines, “the growing power of digital systems could lead us toward new atrocities that are no less shameful than those of the past that we now deplore, while we continue to present ourselves as ‘advanced’ and ‘civilized’ societies.”

In this context, Leo reflects on the Catholic Church’s own troubling history relating to slavery, from antiquity and the Middle Ages to 15th-century papal bulls enabling European nations to subjugate and even enslave “infidels.” 

“It is impossible not to feel deep sorrow when contemplating the immense suffering and humiliation endured by so many in stark contrast to their immeasurable dignity as persons infinitely loved by the Lord,” he wrote. “For this, in the name of the Church, I sincerely ask for pardon.”

Speaking to journalists after the presentation of the document at the Vatican, Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich said that Leo’s apology aligns with efforts by previous pontiffs, including St. John Paul II, “to look at the past and apologize for the way church officials and individuals in the church have hurt others.”

3.      Pushes for regulation of AI – everyone must do their part

In Washington, debate over how — or even whether — to regulate AI has raged for months. Just last week, President Donald Trump abruptly scuttled an executive order aimed at regulating AI at the last minute, canceling an event to mark the signing of the overture just hours before it was set to begin. According to multiple news reports, Trump stepped back from the regulatory efforts after hearing pushback from AI tech executives and advisers.

But in Rome, Pope Leo appears to see regulating AI not as a question to be argued over but as an essential step. 

“It is necessary to establish adequate regulatory tools capable of upholding justice and curbing the distorting effects of technological power,” Leo writes in “Magnifica Humanitas.”

What’s more, Leo argues that regulation itself is not enough. He urges a wider examination of the factors driving AI in the first place, calling for a “shared discernment process” involving people all over the planet, tasked with “identifying the spiritual and cultural roots of ongoing transformations.”

He adds: “If we focus only on contingencies, we risk letting the succession of emergencies dictate the direction of our path.”

“In practice, however, technology is never neutral, because it takes on the characteristics of those who devise, finance, regulate and use it,” Leo writes. “Therefore, the primary choice is not between a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to technology, but rather between constructing Babel or rebuilding Jerusalem; between a power that claims to dominate the heavens and a people who work together in the presence of God to rebuild the walls of fraternal coexistence.”

4.     Rethinks ‘just war’ theory

For centuries, Catholics (including popes) and other Christians have debated a concept known as “just war” theory. In Christian contexts, the idea, which contends that some wars can be morally just if they meet certain criteria, traces its origins to Sts. Ambrose and Augustine.

But the theory became a flashpoint in the U.S. recently after Pope Leo — much like his predecessor, Pope Francis — repeatedly suggested that war itself is generally to be condemned, saying in a recent homily in March that Jesus “does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war.”

Leo’s statements, along with his criticism of the ongoing Iran war, spurred U.S. Republicans such as Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic, and House Speaker Mike Johnson to respond by invoking just war.

“When the pope says that God is never on the side of people who wield the sword, there is more than a 1,000-year tradition of just war theory,” Vance said.

But Leo doubled down on his aversion to just war in “Magnifica Humanitas.” Writing about his concerns surrounding the use of AI in warfare — “No algorithm can make war morally acceptable,” Leo writes — the pontiff made clear that he sees just war theory as an artifact of a bygone era.

“Today, more than ever, without prejudice to the right to self-defense in the strictest sense, it is important to reaffirm that the ‘just war’ theory, which has all too often been used to justify any kind of war, is now outdated,” Leo writes.

5.     Seeks alternatives to GDP to measure development

Nations have long assessed the power and health of a country based on gross domestic product, which tabulates the totality of the market value within a country at a certain time. But Leo argues in his new encyclical that the best way to measure a nation’s development isn’t simply a sum of accumulated wealth, but a complicated list of additional factors.

“It is important to move beyond the current metrics of development — which for more than eighty years have been tied to the concept of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) — since these metrics almost systematically neglect aspects essential to the overall wellbeing of people and the environment,” Leo writes.

Leo suggests better metrics for assessing development should focus on “dignity of work, shared prosperity, inequality reduction and environmental protection,” aspiring for a global economy that “values dignity.”

“It is thus necessary to remember that economic freedom is not absolute; it must always be measured against the common good and the dignity of every person,” the pontiff writes.