The Catholic Church isn’t exactly known for moving fast. Its rituals are ancient. Its language steeped in Latin, and its symbols largely unchanged for centuries. So when Pope Leo XIV used his first address to the College of Cardinals to urge the church to embrace artificial intelligence it was a cultural moment.
The new pope nudged one of the world’s oldest institutions into the heart of the AI era.
“Pope Leo XIII, with the historic Encyclical Rerum Novarum, addressed the social question in the context of the first great industrial revolution,” Pope Leo said to the College of Cardinals after his election, according to the Vatican’s official news agency, Vatican News. He referred to his namesake, whose papacy ran from 1878 to 1903. “Today, the Church offers to all her treasure of social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and the developments of artificial intelligence.”
AI was a topic discussed extensively by the late Pope Francis, the new pope’s predecessor, saying that while the technology contained the potential to serve humanity, it must be used ethically, and its inherent risks must be mitigated, according to the Vatican News. In 2024, he addressed the G7 Session in Bari, Italy, on the subject, and followed that up with speech during an international convention at the Vatican on ‘Generative Artificial Intelligence and Technocratic Paradigm’ that was organized by the Vatican’s Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice.
“I appreciate that the Centesimus Annus has given ample space to this subject, involving scholars and experts from different countries and disciplines, analyzing the opportunities and risks related to the development and use of AI,” Pope Francis said on June 14, 2024.
He added that AI should not become autonomous, that the decision-making should remain in human hands, and that the true purpose of AI is to benefit humanity. He posed an ethical question. “Does it serve to satisfy the needs of humanity, to improve the well-being and integral development of people? Or does it serve to enrich and increase the already high power of the few technological giants despite the dangers to humanity?”
Pope Francis, in his speech that day, said, “Artificial intelligence is an extremely powerful tool, employed in many kinds of human activity: From medicine to the world of work; from culture to the field of communications; from education to politics. It is now safe to assume that its use will increasingly influence the way we live, our social relationships and even the way we conceive of our identity as human beings. The question of artificial intelligence, however, is often perceived as ambiguous: On the one hand, it generates excitement for the possibilities it offers, while on the other it gives rise to fear for the consequences it foreshadows. In this regard, we could say that all of us, albeit to varying degrees, experience two emotions: We are enthusiastic when we imagine the advances that can result from artificial intelligence but, at the same time, we are fearful when we acknowledge the dangers inherent in its use. After all, we cannot doubt that the advent of artificial intelligence represents a true cognitive-industrial revolution, which will contribute to the creation of a new social system characterized by complex epochal transformations. For example, artificial intelligence could enable a democratization of access to knowledge, the exponential advancement of scientific research and the possibility of giving demanding and arduous work to machines. Yet at the same time, it could bring with it a greater injustice between advanced and developing nations or between dominant and oppressed social classes, raising the dangerous possibility that a throwaway culture be preferred to a culture of encounter.”
Perhaps the Vatican’s most comprehensive report on the impact of AI through the lens of the Catholic Church is the “Antiqua et Nova: Note on the Relationship Between Artificial Intelligence and Human Intelligence,” approved by Pope Francis, and released by the Vatican on January 28, 2025.
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops posted the document in its entirety. “In a world marked by AI, we need the grace of the Holy Spirit, who “enables us to look at things with God’s eyes, to see connections, situations, events and to uncover their real meaning. Since a “person’s perfection is measured not by the information or knowledge they possess, but by the depth of their charity, how we incorporate AI to include the least of our brothers and sisters, the vulnerable, and those most in need, will be the true measure of our humanity.”
