TL;DR
Pope Leo XIV released Magnifica humanitas on May 25, 2026, making artificial intelligence the subject of his first encyclical and linking AI governance to human dignity, labor, truth and war. The Vatican confirmed Anthropic co-founder Christopher Olah was among the presentation speakers; OpenAI, Google DeepMind and xAI were not listed. It remains unclear whether those companies were invited, declined or were outside the Vatican’s planned format.
Pope Leo XIV released his first encyclical, Magnifica humanitas, on May 25, 2026, placing artificial intelligence at the center of Catholic social teaching and drawing scrutiny to the Vatican’s decision to present the document with Anthropic co-founder Christopher Olah among the speakers while OpenAI, Google DeepMind and xAI were not named on the official speaker list.
Confirmed: The Holy See Press Office said Magnifica humanitas was signed on May 15, 2026, the 135th anniversary of Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum novarum, and released on May 25. The document is subtitled On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence and places AI inside the Church’s social teaching on power, labor, rights, the common good and peace.
Confirmed: Vatican News said the Pope was present in the Synod Hall and that speakers included Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez, Cardinal Michael Czerny, Anna Rowlands, Leocadie Lushombo and Christopher Olah, an Anthropic co-founder and interpretability researcher. The Vatican materials reviewed do not list OpenAI, Google DeepMind or xAI among the speakers.
The core argument is that AI should not be treated as an outside force acting on society by itself. Leo says human choices, money, law and use shape technology, which makes AI governance a moral and political issue as well as a technical one. The “empty chairs” framing is an interpretation of the launch, not a separate Vatican announcement: the confirmed fact is the public speaker list; the disputed point is what that list signals about who the Church chose as its AI interlocutors.
Technology is never neutral — and neither were the empty chairs
Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical casts AI as this century’s Rerum novarum moment. He presented it personally — with Anthropic’s co-founder in the room. OpenAI, Google DeepMind & xAI were not. For a “broadside against AI companies,” that guest list is itself an argument.
A Rerum novarum for the age of AI
The signing date wasn’t incidental. Leo XIV chose the 135th anniversary of Leo XIII’s 1891 encyclical — and, by taking the Leonine name, cast himself as the pope who answers AI as Leo XIII answered industry.
The same move, 135 years apart
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Five chapters, one worry: concentration
The recurring anxiety is that AI’s power lands “in the hands of only a few” — and that a more moral AI isn’t enough “if that morality is determined by a few.”
A dynamic doctrine, faithful to the Gospel
Situating AI in the Church’s social teaching — the living tradition from Rerum novarum onward.
Foundations & principles
Human dignity that is “neither acquired nor earned”; the common good; the universal destination of goods — tech must not be held by a few.
Technology & dominance
The “technocratic paradigm.” AI can simulate a person but has no moral conscience or empathy. Calls to “disarm” AI from the logic of competition.
Safeguarding humanity: truth, work, freedom
The “new ways” of working aren’t always better; AI too often makes workers adapt to machines. Warns of an “architecture of visibility.”
The culture of power & the civilization of love
The hardest charge: “no algorithm can make war morally acceptable.” Argues even “just war” theory must now be overcome.
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Who was in the room — and who should have been
Leo XIV presented the encyclical personally (popes usually delegate). Among the AI experts: Anthropic’s Chris Olah. The other frontier labs? Empty chairs. Tap each seat.
The presentation · May 25, 2026
A defensible single invite — or a diluted broadside? Press play, then judge.
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A broadside delivered to one delegate
The Washington Post read the encyclical as one that “fires a broadside against AI companies.” A reckoning aimed at an industry is weakened when one member — the most safety-branded one — is present to receive it.
The encyclical’s hardest charge is about AI and war — and it implicates the labs that weren’t there.
Its most uncompromising passages condemn AI-enabled weapons and the lowering of the threshold for violence. But that lands hardest on the defense-entangled players and the leaders most explicit about military & geopolitical ambitions — not the lab that showed up.
Account vs. anoint
One sympathetic guest tilts it from “the Church holding the industry to account” toward “the Church beside its preferred firm.”
Concentration, again
A text whose deepest fear is power “determined by a few” launched by elevating one company as chosen interlocutor.
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Two things are true at once
The criticism is of the exclusivity, not the inclusion. Olah in the room was fitting; Anthropic alone was incomplete.
The most significant AI reckoning yet by a global moral institution
It grounds a critique of concentration, dehumanized work & algorithmic warfare in a tradition stretching back to 1891. Its core insight — technology carries its makers’ values — is exactly the right place to start.
A broadside should be delivered to the industry, not its most palatable face
The choice to present alongside Anthropic alone — defensible, probably well-intentioned — undercut the encyclical’s own insight about whose values get associated with the message.
A beginning, not an endpoint
The same month, Leo XIV approved an Interdicasterial Commission on Artificial Intelligence — a standing body with room for many voices over time. If it brings the whole industry into uncomfortable dialogue, the narrow first launch reads as a first step, not a pattern.
Why It Matters
Encyclicals are among the highest-profile teaching documents issued by a pope, and first encyclicals often set a tone for a pontificate. By using that form for AI, Leo moved the debate beyond product safety and economic competition into questions of who holds power, whose dignity is protected and whether machines are being used to lower the barrier to violence.
The invitation list matters because the document warns against power concentrated in the hands of a few. If only one frontier lab is visibly in the room, especially a company closely identified with AI safety, critics can read the launch as narrowing the target of a document that is aimed at a much larger industry. That reading is an interpretation, but it flows from the encyclical’s own claim that technology reflects the people and institutions behind it.
Background
Leo’s timing was deliberate. Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum novarum in 1891 addressed labor and capital during the industrial age; Leo XIV signed Magnifica humanitas on that encyclical’s 135th anniversary and frames AI as a comparable social break.
The new text has five chapters and returns to a repeated concern: AI systems may be built, financed and governed by a small set of private actors with reach beyond many states. It also addresses work, truth, surveillance, discrimination, military AI and the limits of claims that machines can imitate human conscience or empathy.
“technology is never neutral, because it takes on the characteristics of those who devise, finance, regulate and use it.”
— Pope Leo XIV, in Magnifica humanitas
“Artificial intelligence needs to be disarmed.”
— Pope Leo XIV, at the May 25 presentation, according to Vatican News
“Every frontier AI lab, including Anthropic, operates inside a set of incentives and constraints.”
— Christopher Olah, Anthropic co-founder, in remarks published by Anthropic
What Remains Unclear
It remains unclear whether OpenAI, Google DeepMind or xAI were invited, declined, attended in another capacity or were not sought for the event. The Vatican’s public materials identify Olah and several Church and academic speakers, but they do not explain how AI-side participation was chosen.
It is also too early to know whether the encyclical will affect AI law, company policy or military AI procurement. Its immediate effect is clearer in moral and political language: it gives bishops, Catholic universities, policymakers and civil society groups a papal text to cite in debates over AI power.
What’s Next
Next, Vatican offices, bishops’ conferences, Catholic universities and AI policy groups are likely to test how the encyclical applies to regulation, workplace automation, education, surveillance and weapons systems. AI companies may face renewed questions about whether they will engage the Vatican’s criticism directly, and whether future Church convenings will include a wider set of labs than the May 25 launch showed publicly.
Key Questions
What is Magnifica humanitas?
It is Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical, released May 25, 2026, on safeguarding the human person in the time of AI. The Holy See says it was signed May 15, the anniversary of Rerum novarum.
Did the Pope condemn all AI?
No. The document treats technology as capable of helping people, but says AI is shaped by builders, funders, regulators and users. Its warning is aimed at domination, exclusion, worker harm, surveillance and war.
Who from the AI industry was at the launch?
Vatican News listed Christopher Olah, co-founder of Anthropic and an AI interpretability researcher, among the speakers. Public Vatican materials reviewed do not list OpenAI, Google DeepMind or xAI as speakers.
Why are the missing companies part of the story?
Because the encyclical criticizes concentrated technological power. The absence of several leading labs from the public speaker list has been read by commentators as an optics problem, though the Vatican has not said whether those firms were invited.
What happens now?
The document is likely to be used in Church teaching, university debates and policy discussions about AI safety, labor, data systems and autonomous weapons. Its practical effect depends on whether public officials and companies respond.
Source: Thorsten Meyer AI
