Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, will be published on May 25, addressing artificial intelligence and the protection of human dignity. Source: OSV News.
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 labour 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 AI companies.
Christopher Olah, co-founder of the artificial intelligence company Anthropic, which developed the AI large language model named Claude, will speak on a panel presenting the document at the Vatican’s Synod Hall on May 25.
Also joining the panel will be Anna Rowlands, a British theologian specialising in Catholic social teaching who helped organise the Synod on Synodality, and Léocadie Lushombo, a professor of theological ethics at the Jesuit School of Theology at Santa Clara University.
Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, and Cardinal Michael Czerny, prefect of the Dicastery for Integral Human Development, will also take part in the press conference.
Pope Leo XIV and Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican Secretary of State, will give speeches at the end of the press conference.
Pope Leo XIV has expressed interest in the issue of artificial intelligence and the dignity of work since the first week of his pontificate, telling the College of Cardinals days after his election in May 2025 that he took his papal name partly in honour of Pope Leo XIII, whose landmark encyclical Rerum Novarum has shaped the Church’s social teaching for more than a century.
“In our own day, the Church offers to everyone the treasury of her social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defence of human dignity, justice and labour,” Pope Leo XIV said two days after his election.
The first American pope and a former mathematics major, Pope Leo has returned to the subject of AI again and again in speeches, messages and interviews in his first year, leading Time magazine to include him on its 2025 list of the world’s most influential people in artificial intelligence, with the magazine describing him as a spiritual counterweight to Silicon Valley.
FULL STORY
Pope Leo XIV to publish encyclical on artificial intelligence May 25 (By Courtney Mares, OSV News)
RELATED COVERAGE
Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical Magnifica Humanitas to be published May 25 (Vatican News)
Vatican to publish Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical May 25 (EWTN News)
