The 24 hours since Pope Leo XIV published his first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, have produced something unusual: a papal document being read in earnest by financial and policy capitals as a piece of tech-regulation analysis rather than a piece of theology.
The text addresses governments, parliaments and the executives of the largest AI companies directly, in language that the Holy See has rarely used about a single commercial technology.
The encyclical names artificial intelligence as the present generation’s industrial revolution and argues that without enforceable limits, it will deepen inequality, erode human agency and concentrate power in a small group of firms.
Pope Leo calls for “robust legal frameworks, independent oversight, informed users, and a political system that does not abdicate its responsibility.”
He calls explicitly on states to “disarm AI,” meaning, in the encyclical’s formulation, to remove the technology from purely military and economic interests and place it inside frameworks designed to protect the common good.
