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Updated on: May 25, 2026 / 11:23 AM EDT
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Rome — Pope Leo XIV issued a major document Monday focused largely on the implications of the rise of artificial intelligence for humanity, warning the technology could make civilization itself "less human."Pope Leo, who has repeatedly clashed with the Trump administration over the Iran war and some U.S. officials' religious justification for it, also appeared to dismiss the argument that the conflict was a necessary preemptive measure for American safety."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important to reaffirm that the 'just war' theory, which has all too often been used to justify any kind of war, is now outdated," he wrote in his Magnifica Humanitas (Magnificent Humanity), an 82-page teaching known as an encyclical.Francis also issued a first-ever apology for the Vatican's role in facilitating and justifying the transatlantic slave trade, calling it "a wound in Christian memory.""For this, in the name of the Church, I sincerely ask for pardon," he wrote. But the vast majority of the encyclical was devoted to what Leo clearly sees as humanity's risk-laden embrace of AI.Pope Leo warns AI could make civilization "less human"When the world's first U.S.-born pope chose his name last year, Leo deliberately invoked the last pope to bear it: Pope Leo XIII, whose landmark 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum helped guide the Catholic Church through the upheaval of the Industrial Revolution.
