All posts tagged: Pope

Pope Leo Has Released an Encyclical About A.I. Why Is That Important?

Pope Leo Has Released an Encyclical About A.I. Why Is That Important?

Published by Sam Flores

Pope Leo XIV on Monday presented his vision for how to preserve human dignity in the era of artificial intelligence. ​He offered his ideas by issuing a kind of document known as an encyclical, a nearly 400-year-old papal tradition of teaching the Roman Catholic faithful. The document issued on Monday, titled “Magnifica Humanitas,” or “Magnificent Humanity,” is Leo’s first encyclical since he became pope last year. Written by the pope and generally addressed to the whole church, encyclicals impart authoritative teachings about moral or social challenges. They lack the legal status of a papal bull, which is a formal declaration of an article of faith or moral law. But Catholics are still encouraged to use encyclicals to guide their lifestyles and choices. Popes do not usually attend the presentation of their encyclicals, but Leo presented his in person at the Vatican alongside Christopher Olah, a founder of Anthropic, a major A.I. developer, and several Catholic prelates and theologians. Popes have been writing letters to the faithful since the early days of the church, but Benedict …

Pope Leo calls on Catholics to ‘move beyond’ just war theory in new encyclical

Pope Leo calls on Catholics to ‘move beyond’ just war theory in new encyclical

Published by Sam Flores

(RNS) — While Pope Leo XIV’s new encyclical mostly focuses on AI, it also includes language that suggests that Catholics move past their longstanding reliance on just war theory, offering an assessment of armed conflict likely to spark debate among Catholics and non-Catholics alike. The Catholic tradition has long drawn on saints like Augustine and Thomas Aquinas to teach that war is permissible in a very narrow set of circumstances — where war is justified as a last resort to respond to damage that must be “lasting, grave and certain.” Per church teaching of just war theory, the war must also be likely to be successful and create less harm than the harm eliminated. Since becoming pope last year, Leo has been clear he intended to take a firm stand against war. His first words greeting the world after his election were, “Peace be with you all!” in a speech that went on to call for peace that is “unarmed and disarming.” More recently, in his Palm Sunday homily in March, Leo said, “This is …

Pope Leo takes aim at big tech in sweeping encyclical on AI : NPR

Pope Leo takes aim at big tech in sweeping encyclical on AI : NPR

Published by Sam Flores

Pope Leo XIV attends the presentation of his first encyclical, “Magnifica humanitas,” at the the Vatican on May 25, 2026. Alessandra Tarantino/AP hide caption toggle caption Alessandra Tarantino/AP VATICAN CITY (RNS) — Pope Leo XIV took direct aim at the power of Big Tech in his first encyclical on Monday (May 25), warning that artificial intelligence risks widening inequality, weakening democracy and undermining what it means to be human. The document, titled “Magnifica Humanitas” (Magnificent Humanity), frames AI as the new industrial revolution and makes an appeal to “disarm AI” by removing it from military and economic interests, subjecting AI companies to stricter state and international regulations and inviting the broad participation of individuals and communities in shaping the future of this rapidly developing technology. “Disarming AI means freeing it from the mentality of ‘armed’ competition, which today is not limited simply to the military context, but is also an economic and cognitive phenomenon,” Leo wrote. “Disarming does not mean renouncing technology, but preventing it from dominating humanity,” Pope Leo wrote. “For this reason, merely …

In his first encyclical, Pope Leo XIV says AI must serve humanity, not the powerful few

In his first encyclical, Pope Leo XIV says AI must serve humanity, not the powerful few

Published by Sam Flores

VATICAN CITY (RNS) — Pope Leo XIV took direct aim at the power of Big Tech in his first encyclical on Monday (May 25), warning that artificial intelligence risks widening inequality, weakening democracy and undermining what it means to be human. The document, titled “Magnifica Humanitas” (Magnificent Humanity), frames AI as the new industrial revolution and makes an appeal to “disarm AI” by removing it from military and economic interests, subjecting AI companies to stricter state and international regulations and inviting the broad participation of individuals and communities in shaping the future of this rapidly developing technology. “Disarming AI means freeing it from the mentality of ‘armed’ competition, which today is not limited simply to the military context, but is also an economic and cognitive phenomenon,” Leo wrote. “Disarming does not mean renouncing technology, but preventing it from dominating humanity,” he added. “For this reason, merely regulating it is insufficient; it must be disarmed, welcoming and accessible,” the document read. Leo also took on Big Tech in the document, highlighting the dangers of having a …

Silicon Valley takes its AI pitch to the pope – POLITICO

Silicon Valley takes its AI pitch to the pope – POLITICO

Published by Sam Flores

Now an expert with the Holy See, Salobir chairs the executive committee of the Human Technology Foundation, an organization that promotes ethical reflection on technology and counts Google, Palantir and Qualcomm among its members. Working with the French Embassy to the Holy See, Salobir helped launch a “French AI Observatory in Rome” in 2024, creating a forum for closed-door exchanges between the technology sector and Vatican officials. Starting under Pope Francis, they have grown more frequent recently. The April 29 meeting was one of those. In addition to Salobir and the French government official El Haïry, those attending the meeting included Benoit Tabaka, director of institutional relations and public policy for Google in southern Europe; Claire Scharwatt , head of public policy at Amazon France; Claudia Trivilino, public policy manager for Italy and Greece at Meta; and Adrien Abecassis, director of policy initiatives at the Paris Peace Forum and a former adviser to French President Emmanuel Macron. The focus of the gathering was child protection in the age of AI, but the discussion quickly widened …

The Education of Pope Leo XIV | Greg Grandin

The Education of Pope Leo XIV | Greg Grandin

Published by Jenni Sidey

Father Bob Prevost, today known to the world as Pope Leo XIV, says that when he first arrived in Peru as an Augustinian missionary in 1985, thirty years old and three years a priest, he was naïve. “It was all very natural to me,” he recently told his biographer Elise Ann Allen, to see the clergy working “to build up small communities” and treating the parish as a place “where people come to know one another and help one another and support one another.” When you went to “other places of the country,” however, “there was a very different perspective.”1 He was putting it mildly. Prevost had landed in a country where the Catholic Church was at war with itself—where some theologians were preaching a gospel of class struggle and political liberation, while others were holding the line for a more doctrinaire faith. Over the previous two decades the movement called liberation theology—which depicted Christ as a revolutionary and read the Book of Exodus as a parable for how to escape modern bondage—had spread among …

Pope Leo will take on AI alongside an Anthropic co-founder

Pope Leo will take on AI alongside an Anthropic co-founder

Published by Sam Flores

Pope Leo XIV is set to release a landmark encyclical Monday focused on preserving human dignity in the face of AI. Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content. The pope, who has been outspoken about AI’s potential to encroach on human values, will be joined in Vatican City by leading Catholic figures and Chris Olah, a co-founder of the AI company Anthropic. The document will be Leo’s first encyclical, a special papal letter that is sent to all bishops in the Roman Catholic Church. The encyclical, titled “Magnifica Humanitas,” comes amid growing backlash to AI’s environmental, social and educational impacts. “We are truly experiencing an eclipse of the sense of what it means to be human,” Leo said Friday at a Vatican conference on AI, highlighting “the unbridled promotion and implementation of technology at the expense of human dignity and the damage caused when chatbots and other technologies exploit our need for human relationships.” Leo has made AI a focus of his young tenure. Just days after …

Silicon Valley turns to Rome as Pope Leo XIV prepares AI encyclical

Silicon Valley turns to Rome as Pope Leo XIV prepares AI encyclical

Published by Sam Flores

VATICAN CITY (RNS) — On Monday (May 25), Pope Leo XIV will release his first major papal document, an encyclical titled “Magnifica Humanitas” or “Magnificent Humanity,” expected to update Catholic social teaching for the age of artificial intelligence. Leo signed the document May 15, on the 135th anniversary of “Rerum Novarum,” the landmark 1891 encyclical by his namesake, Pope Leo XIII, that laid the foundations for modern Catholic social thought by defending workers and unions amid the upheaval of the Industrial Revolution. The parallel is deliberate. Since his election a little over a year ago, Leo has repeatedly described AI as a new industrial revolution, one whose consequences reach far beyond technology into war, labor, education, communication, truth, community and the environment. “The challenge we currently face is not technological, but anthropological, and it is my hope that the Encyclical Letter to be published within a few days will contribute to answering this challenge,” Leo wrote in a post on X on Friday (May 22). As evidenced by the unbridled promotion and implementation of technology …

Stephen Colbert Late Show Last Episode: Paul McCartney, Wormhole, Pope

Stephen Colbert Late Show Last Episode: Paul McCartney, Wormhole, Pope

Published by Daniella Wilson

Nine months after Stephen Colbert announced the cancellation of the long-running Late Show, he presided over the final episode of the CBS late night show, with Paul McCartney serving as his final guest after, Colbert joked, his “white whale” guest of the pope “canceled,” disappointed with the hot dogs offered in his dressing room. At the top of his monologue, the host said originally the Late Show team had planned to do a “huge special” for the final episode, but then they realized that “every episode is special.” “The best way to celebrate is to do a normal show and talk about the national conversation,” Colbert said. With that, the host launched into a news-focused monologue, frequently interrupted by star cameos from the audience, including from Bryan Cranston, Paul Rudd and Tim Meadows. Unexpectedly, though the monologue was remarkably light on politics for a show that’s become known for its cutting comedy about President Donald Trump and other political figures. In fact, Trump himself wasn’t even mentioned by name in the final Late Show, including …