Pope Leo’s New Encyclical: Beyond AI

By Ken Butigan

At a perilous time when we are rushing at dizzying speed into an AI future, Pope Leo XIV has called on the world to slow down long enough to ponder the kinds of questions that Artificial Intelligence is not designed ultimately to answer.

In the introduction to Magnifica Humanitas ("Magnificent Humanity"), the first encyclical or his pontificate, the pope asks, "Where are we going? Toward what goal do we wish to orient ourselves? What direction should we choose as a people and as a human community?" AI can hand us detailed maps and voluminous data once we know the answers to existential questions like these, but in the end it's up to us fallible and mortal beings to determine the answers.

In commenting on the pope's document, the New York Times surmised that this encyclical "is expected to be at the center of the 70-year-old pontiff's reign." This could be a safe bet, given how Leo has spoken several times on AI since his election last year and has followed in the footsteps of his predecessor, Pope Francis, who presided over a series of conferences on "the digital age." (Two of which I was able to attend.) The AI juggernaut is sweeping the planet, and as the pope indicates, it is critical that humanity grapple with the weighty philosophical and spiritual—but also geo-political and economic—challenges and opportunities it presents. In this 42,000-word tome, he offers a thoughtful and thorough analysis of Artificial Intelligence and a set of moral and practical prescriptions going forward. It is an historic set of profound reflections for our rapidly changing world.

But to assume that AI will be the central preoccupation of this papacy is probably a misreading of this encyclical and also of what Leo has predominantly emphasized over the course of his young pontificate.

A Larger Focus

Though AI is a colossal reality shaking the world in vast and as yet unimaginable ways, it is possible to see Leo's message within an even larger and far more encompassing horizon: the critical need to respond to what can be called a global paradigm of violence with the even greater paradigm of peace and nonviolence. In this encyclical, Pope Leo highlights Catholic Social Teaching—including the inherent dignity of the human person, the common good, solidarity and social justice—as a basis for faithfully and practically engaging AI. But it is also foundational to this larger paradigm.

AI brings new dangers into the world, many of which are documented in the pope's text, but it is possible to see it finally not as a qualitatively new and unique stage of humanity's journey as much as a variant of a more longstanding challenge: the interlocking systems of violence, injustice, domination and brute force. From this point of view, Pope Leo's meticulous evaluation of AI is part of a larger diagnosis of the systems and structures of violence that have plagued humanity long before the arrival of Silicon Valley.

From his very first moments as pope, Leo has pointed unceasingly to this larger challenge and its alternatives. This was signaled dramatically when, just moments after his election, he blessed the entire world from the balcony overlooking St. Peter's Square with the phrase that the risen Jesus shared with his disciples—"Peace be to you all"—and then immediately broke open its meaning by dramatically proclaiming that Christ's peace is "unarmed and disarming," a phrase that illuminates the active nonviolence at the heart of the Gospel and that points to a dramatically different way forward in our time of crisis.

Since then, His Holiness has invoked the term "peace" over 400 times in statements responding to innumerable forms of violence, war, and injustice taking place worldwide. Not only has the pope called out this destructiveness—wars raging across the world but also systemic poverty, corruption, the climate crisis and many other forms of structural violence and the horrific suffering they inflict—he has also repeatedly urged the Church and the world to take up the unarmed and disarming path as the most powerful and faithful way ahead, as indicated in this encyclical's sub-title, to "safeguard humanity in a time of artificial intelligence."

Confronting Violence

While this means grappling with the peculiar dilemmas that AI poses, doing so also means confronting the paradigm of violence which supports it. As Pope Leo stresses, AI risks the dehumanization of the human person, but dehumanization is not new. AI threatens a dramatic leap in the capacity and autonomy of military systems, but technological warfare is not new. AI imperils truthful communication, but this is not a new phenomenon. AI will, no doubt, intensify these challenges, but they are rooted in patterns humankind has been wrestling with from time immemorial. It is this larger paradigm that Pope Leo is engaging, even as he drills down into the specifics of Artificial Intelligence.

Jesus confronted this paradigm of domination and violence and, by his words and witness, invited us to pursue a paradigm of active nonviolence. That call to Gospel nonviolence is echoed today in the new encyclical's vision of a "civilization of love," which includes disarming words, building peace through justice, and adopting the perspective of victims. Magnifica Humanitas resounds with an invitation to recover Jesus' nonviolent paradigm as we set our face toward the future.

Throughout the encyclical, Pope Leo's commitment to Gospel nonviolence is evident: "The memory of the saints, righteous people and the oft-forgotten peacemakers, show us that grace does not magically eliminate conflict, but instead it inspires active resistance to evil and an astonishing creativity in doing good." This powerful message becomes even clearer when the pope takes a new, historic step regarding the Church's centuries-old teaching of "just war": "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. Humanity possesses far more effective and capable tools for promoting human life and resolving conflicts." In his magisterial document, Pope Leo clarifies an "unarmed and disarming" way: active resistance, creativity, effective and capable tools, resolving conflict, and abandoning the theology of justified violence.

Engaging AI and Beyond

In this encyclical, Pope Leo has applied this nonviolent paradigm to AI: "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. …To disarm means discrediting the assumption that technical power automatically confers the right to govern. To disarm does not mean rejecting technology but preventing it from dominating humanity. It means freeing technology from monopolistic control and opening it to discussion and debate, therefore making it human-friendly and restoring it to the plurality of human cultures and ways of life."

Pope Leo applies the lens of robust nonviolent disarmament to the challenges of AI, but throughout his papacy, he also has used this lens to examine and respond to many other situations where the inviolable sacredness of the human person is under attack. In his 2026 Easter message, he said, "The power with which Christ rose is entirely nonviolent." "Let those who have weapons lay them down! Let those who have the power to unleash wars choose peace! Not a peace imposed by force, but through dialogue! Not with the desire to dominate others, but to encounter them!" On hearing the pope's words, Austen Ivereigh, a biographer of Pope Francis, declared, "Pope Leo's messages and way of operating are teaching us how to build a new world order of nonviolence out of the ashes of the current world disorder."

"Where are we going? Toward what goal do we wish to orient ourselves? What direction should we choose as a people and as a human community?" In Magnifica Humanitas, Pope Leo responds to these questions by calling us to embark on a new journey toward a more nonviolent and just future.

This encyclical opens the space for the Church to explore even more deeply the larger paradigm of nonviolence and peace and how it can teach us to disarm all that hinders this love in our lives and the entire world.

Ken Butigan is co-director of Pax Christi International's Catholic Institute for Nonviolence and a long-time consultant at Pace e Bene.