Pope Leo XIV has used his first major papal document to issue a sweeping warning about artificial intelligence, arguing that AI could deepen inequality, weaken public oversight, and push the world toward more dangerous forms of conflict if left mainly in the hands of powerful private technology companies.
The pope released a 43,000-word encyclical titled “Magnifica Humanitas” on Monday, with the document focused on artificial intelligence, human dignity, digital power, labor, truth, and warfare.
CNN covered the encyclical as a major Vatican intervention in the global AI debate, framing it around Pope Leo’s warning that AI could help lead humanity toward unending war.
Pope Leo warns against concentrated AI power
The encyclical takes direct aim at the concentration of AI development inside private technology companies.
The Economic Times reported that Pope Leo warned that the main drivers of AI development are private, often transnational actors with resources and influence that can surpass many governments.
The pope said this concentration of technological power risks creating “new dependencies, exclusions, manipulations and inequalities,” while also making it harder for societies to govern AI in the public interest.
This is one of the strongest themes of the document. Pope Leo is not rejecting AI as a technology, but he is questioning who controls it, who benefits from it, and whether governments and societies are moving fast enough to build rules around it.
Legal oversight, not abstract ethics
Pope Leo also argued that broad ethical language is not enough.
The encyclical as saying it is not sufficient to invoke ethics “in the abstract,” and that AI needs robust legal frameworks, independent oversight, informed users, and political systems that do not abandon their responsibility.
That message is important because many AI companies already talk about responsible AI, safety testing, transparency, and alignment. The pope’s argument goes further by saying that voluntary promises are not enough if the technology can reshape employment, public debate, war, and social power.
AI in warfare gets the strongest warning
A major part of the encyclical focuses on AI’s role in war, cyberattacks, and information operations.
Pope Leo warned the digital revolution is changing the nature of conflict, and said technologies developed for defense can quickly be repurposed for offensive use. He also cautioned that AI could lower the threshold for the use of force while weakening human accountability for violence.
The pope said AI in warfare must be subject to the most rigorous ethical constraints, and that lethal or irreversible decisions should not be entrusted to artificial systems.
That warning places the Vatican firmly inside one of the most urgent AI policy debates: whether autonomous systems should ever be allowed to identify, select, or strike targets without direct human judgment.
Disinformation and democracy also under scrutiny
The encyclical also connects AI to truth, democracy, and social stability.
Pope Leo warned societies drifting away from facts and truth risk moving toward authoritarianism. The document said indifference to truth leads slowly but surely toward totalitarianism.
That concern reflects the growing fear that AI-generated images, videos, voices, and automated propaganda could make it harder for people to agree on basic facts. In elections, conflicts, public health debates, and social media platforms, the ability to manufacture convincing content at scale could make democratic accountability harder.
Jobs, children, and online attention are part of the concern
Pope Leo’s warning is not limited to military or political risks.
The pope criticized digital business models that “monetise attention and time,” saying parents alone cannot counter the influence of online platforms on children and young users.
On labor, the encyclical warned that AI, robotics, and automation are rapidly reshaping work, but said newer forms of work are “not necessarily better.” The document also stated that the pursuit of greater profits cannot justify choices that systematically sacrifice jobs.
That makes the encyclical both a technology document and a social document. Pope Leo is linking AI to the same themes that have long shaped Catholic social teaching: work, dignity, inequality, human responsibility, and the moral limits of profit.
Vatican places AI at the center of moral debate
The Vatican had earlier announced that “Magnifica Humanitas” would focus on safeguarding the human person in the age of artificial intelligence, and that the presentation would include figures such as Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, Cardinal Michael Czerny, theologian Anna Rowlands, and Anthropic co-founder Christopher Olah.
The presence of an AI researcher alongside Vatican officials shows how seriously the Catholic Church is treating the issue. AI is no longer being discussed only as a software product or business opportunity. It is now being framed as a moral, political, and human question.
For Pope Leo, the central issue is not whether AI will become more powerful. It already is. The question is whether societies can guide it before concentrated corporate power, automated conflict, labor disruption, and synthetic information systems reshape human life faster than public institutions can respond.
