Pope Leo XIV's first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, calls for AI to be removed from monopolies and prevented from becoming an instrument of domination by a select few.

Pope Leo XIV published the encyclical Magnifica Humanitas on May 25, 2026, placing artificial intelligence within the tradition of Catholic social doctrine and invoking the Rerum Novarum of Pope Leo XIII (published on May 15, 1891) on its 135th anniversary.

The encyclical frames "disarming technology" as breaking the equation between technical power and the right to govern—requiring AI to be taken away from monopolies, made transparent and open to challenge, and prevented from becoming an instrument of economic, political, or military domination.

The text identifies concrete risks: algorithms and platforms selecting information based on criteria of maximizing attention and engagement rather than truth; work being reduced to measurable, controllable, replaceable functions; and the delegation of lethal or irreversible decisions to automated systems, which the Pope declares unacceptable.