By Courtney Mares

VATICAN CITY (OSV News) – Pope Leo XIV published his landmark encyclical on artificial intelligence “Magnifica Humanitas” May 25, comparing the attempt to build an AI future that excludes God to the “Tower of Babel” and underlining the need to safeguard human dignity as it is “threatened by new forms of dehumanization.”

“The risk of dehumanization – of building a future that excludes God and reduces the other to a means — is an ancient and ever-new temptation that today takes on a technical guise,” Pope Leo wrote in his first encyclical, “Magnifica Humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence.”

“In the era of artificial intelligence, when human dignity is threatened by new forms of dehumanization, ours is the pressing duty to remain profoundly human. We must lovingly safeguard the grandeur of humanity bestowed upon us and revealed in its fullness in Christ, the splendor of which no machine can ever replace,” he said.

– AI misuse compared to ‘Tower of Babel’ –

Pope Leo opens the first encyclical of his pontificate by saying that humanity today faces a pivotal choice – “either to construct a new Tower of Babel or to build the city in which God and humanity dwell together.” Using the Biblical Genesis narrative, the pope warns against the “‘Babel syndrome,’ namely the idolatry of profit that sacrifices the weak” and the pretense that everything, “including the mystery of the person,” can be translated into “data and performance.”

“Calling for prudence, rigorous evaluation and even, at times, a slower pace in adopting AI does not mean opposing progress; instead, it is an exercise of responsible care for the human family,” Pope Leo wrote.

– From cryptocurrency to the ‘Lord of the Rings’ –

The lengthy papal document is divided into five chapters and touches on wide ranging issues related to AI, including the prospect of massive unemployment, the future of education, the protection of human freedom, excessive screen time for young people, cryptocurrencies, economic disparities, transhumanism, cyberattacks and the application of Catholic social teaching principles.

Pope Leo dedicated the final chapter of the encyclical to AI in warfare and the need for “rigorous ethical constraints” and proactive peacebuilding “to curb the technological arms race.”

The American pope points to Martin Luther King Jr., St. Teresa of Kolkata, Dorothy Day, St. Maximilian Kolbe and others as examples that “history can also change when individuals truly take the dignity of everyone seriously.”

In “Magnifica Humanitas,” Latin for “Magnificent Humanity,” the pope calls on Christians not to be “passive spectators” or “mere commentators on what is crumbling,” but to take a proactive role in building the future by cultivating community and in-person relationships, educating young people to love wisdom, spending time with the poor and the lonely, being a voice for justice, defending objective truth, and treating the digital world as “a new continent to be evangelized.”

“It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till,” the pope wrote, quoting J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.” He added that it is “small and steadfast acts of fidelity that serve as a bulwark against dehumanization.”

– ‘Slowing things down when everything is accelerating’ –

In the encyclical, Pope Leo says that the idea of a “more moral AI” is not enough if that morality is only determined by a few.

“What is needed is a more active political involvement that is capable of slowing things down when everything is accelerating, and of protecting the opportunities for communities still to be able to participate and ask questions,” he said.

The pope argues that “we cannot consider AI to be morally neutral” and underlines that ethical discernment cannot be limited to “asking whether we are using a system for good or bad purposes,” but must also “examine how that system is designed and what vision of the human person and society is embedded in the data and models that guide it.”

Pope Leo added that data cannot be left solely in private hands and “should not be treated as something to be sold off or entrusted to a select few,” calling for appropriate regulation and creative thinking to “manage data as a common or shared good.”

– Unemployment as a ‘grave evil’ and ‘social calamity’ –

Pope Leo addresses the looming specter of mass unemployment due to the adoption of AI, saying this would be “a true social calamity that especially requires the State to exercise responsibility.” He cites St. John Paul II’s 1981 encyclical on human work “Laborem Exercens,” noting that his predecessor recognized that unemployment is “a grave evil,” with Pope Leo adding that “exposing many to forced inactivity, a lack of responsibility and the absence of daily tasks and stimuli” could lead to “human and cultural impoverishment.”

“The pursuit of greater profits cannot justify choices that systematically sacrifice jobs, because the human person is an end, not a means, and the economic order must remain subordinate to human dignity and the common good,” Pope Leo said.

“Without bold decisions, the prospect of greater poverty and inequality looms large, which would leave many individuals marginalized, stranded and surrounded by the machines and automated systems that have replaced them,” he added.

– God created humans for communion, not efficiency –

Pope Leo writes that AI promises efficiency but the “new ways” of working are not necessarily better, describing how “contrary to the advertised benefits of AI, current approaches to technology can paradoxically de-skill workers, subject them to automated surveillance and relegate them to rigid and repetitive tasks.”

“When efficiency becomes the ultimate measure of value, human beings are tempted to see themselves as a project to be optimized rather than as persons called to relationship and communion,” Pope Leo said.

– A defense of objective truth –

Truth is a major theme in the encyclical by the Augustinian pope. He said that in the face of incessant flows of information, opinions, images and sophisticated algorithms that can influence decisions, it is imperative to “cultivate hearts that love the truth, prefer what is right despite the most appealing content and pursue wisdom rather than immediate results.”

“We must always keep before us the truth about God and humanity, just as Christ has revealed them to us. We must lay aside an individualistic and technical view of humanity,” he said.

Quoting Pope Benedict XVI, he added, “Modern man is wrongly convinced that he is the sole author of himself, his life and society. This is a presumption that follows from being selfishly closed in upon himself.”

The pope underlined that “the search for truth is an essential element of democracy,” and that “indifference to the truth leads, slowly but surely, to a descent into totalitarianism.”

He said people must “promote an ecology of communication,” in which public policy establishes norms “so that the decision-making behind content selection and its development becomes more transparent and protects personal data.” On a cultural level, he called for “a strengthening of intermediary organizations, serious journalism and forums for debate,” for families and schools to gain formation in using digital tools, and for universities to strive for the “integration of knowledge.”

“Our first task is neither to demonize nor idolize technological tools, but to utilize them on the basis of a fundamental principle, namely that truth is a common good and not the property of those with power or influence,” he said.

– Social control and the ‘digital attention economy’ –

Pope Leo called for “education in digital sobriety” due to subtle forms of addiction in today’s “digital attention economy,” in which digital platforms that are “designed to capture users’ time and attention” weaken “their inner freedom.”

He warned of the risk of “social control made possible by the massive collection of data and use of algorithmic systems.”

“When every action – movements, purchases, relationships and preferences – leaves a trace, a new form of power emerges, namely the power to profile, predict and influence behavior, often without individuals being fully aware of it,” he said. “If such kinds of data are used to make decisions affecting concrete opportunities – such as access to credit, employment or essential services – there is a risk of undermining freedom and discriminating against the most vulnerable.”

– Pope Leo XIII and Catholic social doctrine –

Pope Leo XIV places his writing on the age of artificial intelligence within the context of the magisterial tradition of Catholic social doctrine, also known as Catholic social teaching. The first chapter of the encyclical provides an overview of what each pope has contributed to the Church’s social magisterium from Pope Leo XIII to present, highlighting key ideas that are particularly relevant today. The second chapter provides definitions of key principles of Catholic social doctrine from the “common good” to “subsidiarity.” Pope Francis and St. John Paul II are both frequently quoted throughout the encyclical.

Pope Leo XIV signed “Magnifica Humanitas” on May 15, the 135th anniversary of “Rerum Novarum,” Pope Leo XIII’s foundational 1891 social encyclical on labor and capital written during the Industrial Revolution.

“While new economic and technological networks can generate exclusion, isolation and dependencies, the Church – nourished by the Eucharist – is called to make visible a different paradigm, one that preserves human connections, gives a voice to the invisible and ensures that processes are aimed at respecting people’s dignity,” Pope Leo said.

(Courtney Mares is Vatican editor for OSV News. Follow her on X @catholicourtney.)

By Maria Wiering

(OSV News) – What does it mean to safeguard our humanity? That question is at the heart of Pope Leo XIV’s much anticipated first encyclical, “Magnifica Humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence,” released May 25. The following are some key things to know about this weighty papal letter.

1. Latin for “Magnificent Humanity,” the title is drawn from the opening words of the text as rendered in Latin, as is customary for papal encyclicals. Those words state, in its English translation, “Humanity, created by God in all its grandeur, is today facing a pivotal choice: either to construct a new Tower of Babel or to build the city in which God and humanity dwell together.” Throughout the encyclical, Pope Leo points to “the grandeur of humanity,” with men and women created by God for relationship with him and each other, cooperating in God’s creative work and guided by the Holy Spirit.
   
2. The document is about 42,000 words long, including footnotes, making it roughly the size of a novella. It spans five chapters sandwiched between a robust introduction and conclusion. The first chapter traces the development of Catholic social doctrine, or social teaching, especially since “Rerum Novarum,” Pope Leo XIII’s seminal 1891 encyclical on the dignity of labor. The second chapter dives into the substance of Catholic social teaching. The third chapter explores the challenges artificial intelligence presents to humanity; the fourth chapter hones in on safeguarding truth, work and freedom; and the fifth chapter focuses on the implications of AI in warfare.
   
3. From education and jobs to private tech companies and families, “Magnifica Humanitas” is wide-ranging. It touches on the prospect of massive unemployment, the future of education, the protection of human freedom, excessive screen time for young people and technology addiction, data ownership, cryptocurrencies, economic disparities, environmental impacts, transhumanism and posthumanism, and cyberattacks and other forms of warfare. Pope Leo addresses the idea of “moral AI,” and argues that the basis for “alignment of AI with human values” requires “openly discussing the ethical frameworks involved and subjecting them to shared standards of social justice” in a conversation inclusive to all communities.
   
4. The document includes references to an array of influential thinkers. Beyond Pope Leo’s papal predecessors, the letter points to or quotes Dorothy Day, Maria Montessori, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., J.R.R. Tolkien, Plato, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the American humanist thinker Hannah Arendt, among others. And, of course, Pope Leo weaves in St. Augustine, the patron of Pope Leo’s Augustinian religious order and Pope Leo’s ever-present guide, particularly through the African bishop’s important fifth-century book, “The City of God.”
   
5. It uses biblical imagery, imploring people to examine what humanity is building in “the construction site of our time.” The Tower of Babel and the City of God are contrasted throughout the encyclical to illustrate the two possible directions that the era of AI could take: a path of arrogance, artificial sense of self-sufficiency and chaos, or a path towards communion, relationship and God. Pope Leo underlines the critical need for developing a process for discernment to guide the development of AI. “The task of building today must place our relationship with God at its center,” Pope Leo writes.
   
6. Despite its challenges, AI is not to be inherently feared. “Technology should not be considered, in itself, as a force antagonistic to humanity,” he writes. “Over the centuries, technological development has significantly improved the living conditions of humanity. At the same time, each phase of progress has also revealed the ambiguity of tools that can cause harm when not oriented toward the good.” He speaks directly to AI developers, telling them that “technological innovation can represent human participation in the divine act of creation,” and therefore they “bear a particular ethical and spiritual responsibility, for every design choice reflects a vision of humanity.”
   
7. Taking time for discernment is critical in our path forward. The encyclical invites people of goodwill into “a shared discernment process for identifying the spiritual and cultural roots of ongoing transformations” as they relate to AI. “We are living through a rapid phase of transition, a ‘change of era,’ in which … most people are watching and waiting, observing from afar and merely hoping for the best,” Pope Leo writes. “For this very reason, crucial questions impose themselves on our conscience and can no longer be avoided: Where are we going? Toward what goal do we wish to orient ourselves? What direction should we choose as people and as a human community?”
   
8. It explains the principles of Catholic social teaching and why they are important in building a future where humanity flourishes. Pope Leo explains central tenets of Catholic social teaching – the dignity of the person, the common good, the universal destination of goods, subsidiarity, solidarity and justice – as he makes the case for their use as guiding principles for AI. “The Social Doctrine of the Church is a legacy of wisdom, where we find principles for thought, criteria for discernment and judgment, and concrete guidelines for action,” Pope Leo writes. “Founded on Sacred Scripture and Tradition, and in engagement with the sciences, it helps us clearly interpret the challenges of the present and identify appropriate ways for living out a clear Christian witness, with joy and in service to the world. It is not an inert set of concepts, but a living corpus of truth that safeguards and interprets humanity’s vocation to a full and just life.” As AI has exponentially advanced and become part of daily life, people of goodwill must “face the challenges of our time with clarity of thought and responsibility,” he writes.
   
9. People cannot be reduced to machines, measured for their efficiency and valued for their “optimization.” Artificial intelligence “threatens to normalize an anti-human vision,” Pope Leo writes. “In that vision, the fullness of life is equated with having more, reducing weakness, eliminating uncertainty and exerting total control. When efficiency becomes the ultimate measure of value, human beings are tempted to see themselves as a project to be optimized rather than as persons called to relationship and communion.” Instead, “the quality of a civilization,” he writes, “is measured not by the power of its means, but by the care it is able to offer, by its ability to recognize the other as a face not merely as a function.”
   
10. Robust ethical consideration should be given to AI’s impact on war. Pope Leo is particularly concerned that AI, “detached from ethics and responsibility, will render decisions about life and death more rapid and impersonal, and will present the use of force as an immediate and viable option.” In calling for the principles of Catholic social teaching to serve as decision-making guidelines, he condemns “the spread of a culture of power characterized by polarization and violence.” Instead, he calls humanity to “the civilization of love,” which is “no naïve utopia, but a demanding project, which consists in translating charity into structures of justice, giving institutional form to fraternity, and regarding others – whether individuals or peoples – as allies necessary for building the common good.” He also gives criteria for using AI in war.
    
11. “Magnifica Humanitas” is actually all about relationship. Throughout the encyclical, Pope Leo points to humanity’s relationship to God and relationship to each other. In this area, he underscores action over passivity, and urges people to work toward “a willed and chosen solidarity.” He writes, “This is the guiding principle for technological processes: it is not enough for artificial intelligence to make us more efficient or connected; it must also serve to build a universal human family, with shared rights and duties, where digital proximity becomes a real opportunity for encounter and mutual care.”
    
12. Whatever the future holds, humanity’s meaning is rooted in Jesus Christ. The document’s conclusion includes a compelling reflection on the Incarnation through the “face of the Son of God, the grandeur of humanity that shines a light also on the era of AI.” “No computational system, however sophisticated, can create a heart that gives itself, or a conscience that discerns good from evil. Even when machines excel in efficiency, a human face that asks to be gazed upon remains the center of our history,” Pope Leo writes. “This human face is the fullness toward which history is moving.”
    
13. The encyclical calls for personal conversion. The pope proposes for the Christian “a sober yet demanding program of Christian life with which we can navigate this epochal change in the light of the Gospel” centered on “contemplating God’s plan,” receiving the Eucharist, “building a world centered on the common good,” and praying in union with Mary. He encourages people to cultivate community and in-person relationships, educate young people to love wisdom, spend time with the poor and lonely, be a voice for justice, defend objective truth, and treat the digital world as “a new continent to be evangelized.” His final reflection centers on the “Magnificat,” Mary’s famous canticle glorifying God, recounted in the first chapter of the Gospel of Luke. Pope Leo writes: “In the humble fidelity of daily life, even the era of AI can become a time in which the Holy Spirit brings about the civilization of love in our lives.”

(Maria Wiering is managing editor of OSV News. Contributing to this story were OSV News’ Vatican Editor Courtney Mares and Digital Editor Megan Marley.)

By Gina Christian

(OSV News) – In his new encyclical on artificial intelligence, Pope Leo XIV took aim at the normalization of war, made more dangerous by a digital revolution that is “changing the nature of conflict” and blurring “the fine line between protection and aggression.”

The pope described the just war theory as “outdated” and – except for cases of “self-defense in the strictest sense” – said it has “all too often been used to justify any kind of war.” With AI expanding the capabilities of weapons systems, Pope Leo called for “the most rigorous ethical constraints” on the use of AI in warfare, as weaponry itself evolves with deadly efficiency.

Above all, Pope Leo urged a renewed commitment to St. Paul VI’s vision to build a “civilization of love.” He said “war is never inevitable” and said all can contribute to bringing about “the true peace born of justice,” nurtured in the theological virtue of hope.

The highly anticipated “Magnifica Humanitas,” signed by the pope on May 15 and released May 25, invoked the wisdom of the Church’s social teaching – which articulates the means of building a just society and living out holiness in modern life – as a framework for shaping AI amid rapid technological advances, a fractured global order, and accelerating threats to human life and dignity.

In the document, subtitled “On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence,” Pope Leo situated the rapid development of AI within the current global geopolitical landscape.

AI has emerged as one key factor among many – such as developments in warfare, armaments, information access, markets, and social and global relations – driving the erosion of the postwar international order and the expansion of conflict, the pope said.

– A ‘culture of power’ versus a ‘civilization of love’ –

In the encyclical’s fifth chapter, which discusses AI and war, Pope Leo begins by contrasting the “culture of power” with the “civilization of love,” the latter of which was coined by St. Paul VI in a 1970 Regina Caeli address during Pentecost.

The two terms respectively correspond with the document’s central biblical images: the construction of the Tower of Babel, symbolizing arrogance and pride, and the rebuilding of Jerusalem under Nehemiah after the Babylonian exile, which represents collaborative, God-centered efforts.

Alongside the culture of power – marked by “polarization and violence,” as well as the drive for supremacy – “a great part of humanity” also strives to build “the holy city of coexistence and peace,” said the pope.

Yet the culture of power is “taking hold,” with humanity’s common good “relegated to the background,” and “the concrete tragedy of peoples at war” is subordinated to the consideration of “strategic interests,” Pope Leo said.

The effects are intensified as “digital networks, the globalized economy and the development of AI create increasingly tighter bonds,” observed Pope Leo, noting that “decisions made in one place” are linked “in real time” to “the effects they produce elsewhere.”

The culture of power works to normalize war and expand military power, he said, while “fueling a false realism that insists that there is no alternative.”

Despite the international rules-based order agreed upon following World War II, the past 60 years have been marred by “conflicts of astonishing brutality” that have impacted civilians “on a massive scale,” Pope Leo said.

— A ‘real paradigm shift’ to war revival —

He identified “a real paradigm shift” that has led to a “troubling revival of war as an instrument of international politics,” all while the ethical principles that had constrained war “are being eroded.”

That revival has been compounded by “a disconcerting loss of historical memory.” As the first-hand accounts of survivors of the First and Second World Wars and the Holocaust, or Shoah – the systematic persecution and murder of six million Jews under the Nazi regime and its collaborators – “are disappearing,” Pope Leo said the lessons of war are being forgotten, obscured by “a “selective or distorted rewriting of the past.”

The pope pointed as well to the influence of digitally revamped, “fragmented information environments,” in which “algorithms that reward conflict” work to make war “culturally conditioned.”

“When historical memory fades and the ethical principles that protect civilians and the most vulnerable are weakened, it becomes easier to justify violence as necessary, inevitable or even ‘sanitized,'” he said. “It is in this context that humanity is slipping into a violent culture of power, where peace no longer appears as a responsibility to be taken on, but as a fragile interval between conflicts.”

– Just war theory ‘outdated’ –

As a result, he said, “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.”

The Catechism of the Catholic Church stipulates that legitimate defense by military force is only morally permissible under strict conditions that are all present at one and the same time: the “lasting, grave and certain” damage from the aggressor, the exhaustion of all other means to end such damage, “serious prospects of success,” and the use of arms such that graver evils and disorders are not produced.

In an accompanying footnote to his statement on just war theory, Pope Leo quoted Pope Francis’ 2020 encyclical “Fratelli Tutti,” in which the late pope both noted that in recent decades “every single war has been ostensibly ‘justified'” and warned against falling into “an overly broad interpretation of this potential right. In this way, some would also wrongly justify even ‘preventive’ attacks or acts of war that can hardly avoid entailing ‘evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated.'”

Noting modern war’s “disastrous consequences for civilian populations,” Pope Leo said, “Humanity possesses far more effective and capable tools for promoting human life and resolving conflicts, such as dialogue, diplomacy and forgiveness.”

– A wider battlefield, a new arms race –

Warfare itself has become more asymmetric and hybridized, said Pope Leo, with the battlefield expanding to encompass “economic, financial and cyberfronts.”

With the rise of “jihadist groups, private militias and criminal networks,” ideology and economic interests have become intertwined, making war a “way of life” for entire generations of the young, he said.

“Here, the objective is no longer a definitive victory, but the perpetuation of conflict as a source of power and income,” he said, noting the growth of the military-industrial complex has become “a key sector in the economy of various countries.”

A “new arms race” has been set in motion, with nuclear reduction agreements being dismantled and nuclear deterrence erroneously pursued as “indispensable” to security, he said.

In an apparent reference to drones which have been pivotal to the current wars in Iran, Ukraine, Sudan and Gaza – Pope Leo said “the development of ‘miniaturized’ weapons” in this new arms race has led to their use seeming “like a more viable option.”

– AI and weapons-

Pope Leo particularly noted autonomous weapons systems (a term often prefixed with “lethal”), which he said make war “more ‘feasible’ and less subject to human control.”

Currently, there is no internationally accepted legal definition of lethal autonomous weapons, which can range from semi-autonomous and supervised to fully autonomous, with no human control following launch.

With armed force as a last resort, Pope Leo said that “the development and use of AI in warfare must be subject to the most rigorous ethical constraints, to guarantee respect for human dignity and the sanctity of life and to avoid a race to develop such arms.”

“No algorithm can make war morally acceptable,” Pope Leo declared, underscoring his point that it is “not permissible to entrust lethal or otherwise irreversible decisions to artificial systems.”

While AI must reflect alignment with human moral values, Pope Leo dismissed the concept of “artificial moral agents” that would seek to replace a human being’s moral judgement, which involves “conscience, personal responsibility and the recognition of the other as a person.”

– ‘Concrete criteria’ required for the use of weapons in the AI age –

Moreover, he said, three “concrete criteria for discernment” must be established for the use of weapons in an age of artificial intelligence: an “identifiable and verifiable” chain of responsibility that holds accountable “those who design, train, authorize and employ technology;” a moral timeframe for making “irreversible decisions” amid war where “speed and efficiency” are “never … the supreme motivating force;” and the identification and protection of civilians in conflict, rather than faceless strikes on non-combatants.

“Target selection and the use of force must not confuse combatants and non-combatants, nor ignore the impact on defenseless populations,” he said.

In addition, Pope Leo listed three “non-negotiable requirements” for weapons in the AI age. First, all systems in warfare must be able to retrace and reconstruct decision-making processes, “so that accountability and blame are not collapsed into ‘the machine.'” Second, the decision to use lethal force “must remain under effective, self-aware and responsible human control,” rather than “delegated to opaque or automated processes.” Third, a shared framework must be established to curtail the arms race and ensure protection for civilians and critical civilian infrastructures.

– Greater danger, greater responsibility –

Pope Leo urged “all key players” in AI — scientists, scholars, business leaders and politicians — to be “transparent and responsible,” keeping in mind “an acute awareness” of the full impact of their work in advancing technology, so as not to “deceive themselves into believing they are performing actions that are morally neutral and avoid questions about the ultimate ends that guide certain experiments.”

Such vigilance is especially crucial as “new wars … are perhaps even more dangerous than those of the past, since they tend to disregard all ethical limits.”

Pope Leo lamented that “decisions now seem to be driven almost exclusively by economic calculations, justified through media distortions, manufactured enthusiasm and ‘dreams’ that inevitably shatter, generating frustration and further violence.”

In nations wrought by “serious social tensions,” he said, “we cannot rule out the possibility that some leaders may consider armed conflict as an effective way of diverting attention from domestic problems and a cynical tool for managing difficulties.”

– ‘Let us disarm words’ –

Amid grave dangers of the moment, Pope Leo affirmed that Christians “do not merely gaze” upon the darkness “passively,” but “serve the good.” He said they “know the light and understand that the darkness has not overcome it and cannot defeat it,” a reference to John 1:5.

“Even in the darkest nights, the Lord raises up men and women who refuse to give up, who persevere in doing good, who protect the vulnerable and open pathways to reconciliation,” he said. “The memory of the saints, righteous people and the oft-forgotten peacemakers, show us that grace does not magically eliminate conflict, but instead it inspires active resistance to evil and an astonishing creativity in doing good.”

The “sum total of small and steadfast acts of fidelity,” he added, will build “the civilization of love.”

He pointed to his May 2025 call – which he repeated during the May 25 press conference announcing the encyclical’s release – to “disarm words” in order to “help disarm the world.”

Pope Leo also stressed the need to build justice-based peace that is not just “an absence of conflict at any cost.”

He urged “giving space to the perspectives and voices” of war’s victims to make people aware of the “abyss of evil inherent in war, and generally in all forms of violence.” He noted that “both history and memory” are essential to the prevention of war – along with dialogue, diplomacy, authentic multilateralism and prayer.

“Let us never tire of praying for peace,” he said, “and of committing ourselves to achieving it in our relationships and in society.”

 
(Gina Christian is a multimedia reporter for OSV News. Follow her on X @GinaJesseReina.)

By Paulina Guzik

(OSV News) – Amid the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence and digital media, Pope Leo XIV is calling on families, schools and policymakers to forge an “educational alliance for the digital age” to protect the dignity and intellectual development of young people.

“In an era when truth is often distorted in order to serve particular interests and communication strategies, the field of education assumes decisive importance,” Pope Leo wrote.

In the newly released encyclical “Magnifica Humanitas,” Pope Leo is urging teachers, caregivers and university lecturers to not give up on a generation that could otherwise be lost to technology. And he’s starting with a quite blunt fact clearly derived from his pastoral, on the ground approach of a missionary: “Rapid technological transformations reveal just how unprepared we are on the educational level.”

“The pervasiveness of digital media” fosters “a culture of immediacy and hyper-stimulation,” Pope Leo said, giving “rise to fatigue, boredom and apathy concerning the effort required for seeking the truth.” But education stands on the other side of the barricade, the pontiff stressed, and is “a long journey requiring patience” and needing “time for development and for engagement with reality beyond appearances.”

Luke Rowe, lecturer and researcher at the Australian Catholic University, was not only happy when he read those passages – he was deeply “moved,” he said.

“I think I didn’t realize how much I was longing to hear this guidance,” he told OSV News of the encyclical. “And I think the world needs it right now.”

“There was almost a hunger for this guidance,” he said, pointing out that what struck him most reading the encyclical was that the Holy Father underlined the “the frailty of humanity and our imperfections provide the necessary backdrop for us to appreciate and call out for God’s love,” Rowe said.

– Fragility of humanity in the face of AI –

The pope wrote in his encyclical that in offering reflections on the digital continent, he hoped to “help the lay faithful and people of goodwill rediscover their duty of implementing” the principles of Catholic social doctrine principles “in their daily lives, family relationships, work and involvement in society. Thus, they will let themselves be inspired by the aim of embodying God’s love in the concrete events of life.”

The pope emphasized the danger of relying too heavily on automated systems for learning, noting that “the speed and ease with which answers or summaries can be obtained risk extinguishing the desire to ask questions.” Consequently, he urged society to “protect our young people from the promise of the perfect machine, from that subtle temptation which renders human thought seemingly superfluous precisely when it is most needed.”

“With an increasingly synthetic AI driven world, we’re expected to have the answers straight away,” said Rowe, whose main areas of teaching focus on the science of learning, evidence-based teaching and health education at ACU’s Melbourne campus.

“Everything’s now neat and polished. We all have perfect grammar because we’re writing with AI on our emails,” he said. “We have perfect structured documents and perfect images.” This “synthetic world is starting to erase human imperfections, at least on the surface. And I think for me, a thriving education ecosystem requires us to see our imperfections. And hearing this — that resonated with my heart deeply,” he said after reading the encyclical.

“I felt like that was being spoken to directly,” Rowe stressed. “And I wanted to share that with my students. I want to share that with our trained educators … and I want them to know that it’s OK to be flawed, vulnerable, imperfect human beings and that there is a lot of hope for us.”

“For an algorithm, an error is a flaw to be corrected; for a person, however, an error can be a catalyst for profound change,” the pope said in his encyclical, among a number of pointed reflections on stark difference between technology and humanism.

– A major task: teaching the young how to use AI –

Addressing the specific challenges posed by the rise of artificial intelligence, the encyclical cautions that “every technology shapes those who use it.” Rather than simply adapting to new tools, the encyclical outlines that “educating people about the use of AI … involves teaching them to decide when and for what purpose it ought not to be used.”

Education “is to amplify and celebrate the diversity of everyone’s uniqueness and to give everyone a voice. And that’s a challenge in a world where AI is homogenizing people and giving them a script, taking away their voice … blending it into some kind of, I suppose, homogenized sludge,” Rowe told OSV News.

He said that a clear call to action in educational terms from the encyclical “is to be more careful about how we use this technology to build upon and augment the individuality of people. And what makes them unique and special is something that should be celebrated, not homogenized,” Rowe said.

The Australian professor underlined that the risk in academia is a frantic search for answers in technology, while the pope provides a genuinely human answer to big concerns.

“I have seen this technology swallow itself up every three to six months with something new. And so for me, it points to the fact that we need to have a set of first principles as guideposts to pivot from. And that, to me, is what I believe was missing,” he said of the encyclical’s takeaways, which he said are “very powerful call to action.”

– A harmful early digital exposure –

The encyclical also outlines the severe psychological and social harms of early and unsupervised digital exposure, which can negatively impact sleep, attention spans and emotional control, while opening the door to online exploitation, cyberbullying and manipulation by AI tools.

Acknowledging the immense pressure on the modern family, the pope conceded that “it is difficult for parents by themselves to resist the influence of business models that monetize attention and time.”

Because of that, he called for an “alliance among policy-makers, educational institutions and families that is capable of concretely supporting adults in this task.”

What he said is needed are “far-sighted public policies … to oppose the immediate interests of platforms – concentrated in a few hands – when they conflict with the wellbeing of minors.”

Kathy Ann Mills, a professor at Australian Catholic University who researches — among other fields — digital and media practices, said that the education world can play “a role in teaching children and young people how to use technology in responsible ways, and as Pope Leo XIV reminds us, “to use AI as a valuable tool, but in a way that requires vigilance,” MIlls underlined.

“Importantly, he points to some of the dangers of AI that can be misleading, such as creating illusions of friendship with a personal subject, which research shows is a danger when humans develop emotional bonds with machines,” she said in a written message to OSV News.

“Children also have developing understandings of AI, with different or immature ways of thinking about human-like machines than older children and adults,” she wrote. “For example, the tendency to anthropomorphize artificial agents, particularly when AI has a human-like persona, face, backstory or physical form, like robots, changes over time. So this is an example of how teachers and parents play a vital role in guiding children’s developing understandings of AI,” she emphasized.

Pope Leo also talks in his encyclical about legislators intervening to set appropriate age limits, holding service providers accountable “rather than shifting the whole burden of control onto families,” and providing specific protections “against all forms of online sexual exploitation and violence.”

He calls children and adolescents “a precious treasure” in need of such protection, but also urges that they are taught “how to recognize manipulation, defend their dignity and respect that of others in digital environments.”

“Research shows that AI systems contain biases that need to be challenged,” Mills said, pointing to Pope Leo’s words: “Ethical discernment cannot be limited to asking whether we are using a system for good or bad purposes; it must also examine how that system is designed and what vision of the human person and society is embedded in the data and models that guide it.”

School, Pope Leo said, “is the place where new generations can learn to seek and love the truth, to reflect on the meaning of life and to recognize the dignity of every person” — but that same school, faced with the digital age, seems weak.

“Even young children can begin to develop a sense of social justice, learning to identify when the output undermines social justice and the common good,” Mills pointed out. “They can see which voices are missing, whose views and values dominate, and whose views are silenced. They can also learn to think about ‘who’ benefits from the technologies,” she said.

For families and schools, the pope said, “there is a growing need for new educational awareness and for formation concerning the proper and critical use of digital tools, AI and online commercial and financial platforms.” In universities, on the other hand, “the principal challenge lies in the integration of knowledge, so as to cultivate the capacity to connect and synthesize knowledge in order to grasp complexity, while also forming the skills necessary for verifying facts.”

Pope Leo said technology “has the power to heal, connect, educate and protect our common home; but it can also divide, exclude and generate new forms of injustice.”

Within that frame “the organization of schools, physical spaces, evaluation methods and the role of teachers themselves must be rethought in order to promote an authentically integral education that addresses every dimension of the person,” the encyclical outlined.

– Support for teachers –

In a rather unbalanced race between education and technology, teachers also need to be supported, the pope said, stressing it is “necessary to support the ongoing formation of teachers throughout their professional lives, so that they can engage positively with new technologies, helping students to use them responsibly, critically and creatively, rather than passively succumbing to their influence.”

Many educators, Pope Leo said, “already report signs of dehumanization, where people may ‘know many things’ but struggle to find direction in their lives, partly due to an inability to connect information with deeper knowledge or maintain a sense of purpose.”

As an answer to that, “a genuinely healthy attitude is needed, requiring rhythms that incorporate silence, in-depth study, reading and judicious analysis, for without these elements inner freedom may be compromised.”

For Rowe, the pope pointing out critical thinking is key.

“Students need to be able to think for themselves before they start to defer to technology to do the thinking for them,” he told OSV News.

In an AI era, “you can fall asleep on a keyboard and wake up to a Shakespearean sonnet and impress yourself, and make yourself think that you’re a great writer, even though you may not know how to do anything but put in a little sloppy text prompt,” Rowe underlined.

The big challenge therefore is to meet that aspect of human dignity “so that we still value knowledge and people who bear knowledge,” he said.

“There’s something sacred in that and how teachers and students interact when they build knowledge together, and I think there’s a big challenge moving forward in what that means for education.”

The Church’s social doctrine, Pope Leo said, “invites families, schools, Christian communities and public institutions to form a renewed educational alliance,” which he proposes in his encyclical.

In this alliance students should be taught “a sense of moderation and limits; the recognition of the right of others, as well as of future generations, to enjoy the goods that are either provided for us or made available by human ingenuity; freedom and responsibility; and a sense of transcendence and the common good.”

Schools therefore, Pope Leo wrote, “are not called to follow the pace of the digital world,” but to “offer that which the digital sphere by itself cannot provide, namely a shared time for learning and developing trustworthy relationships.”

(Paulina Guzik is international editor for OSV News. Follow her on X @Guzik_Paulina.)