Pope Leo XIV's encyclical Magnifica Humanitas

Pope Leo XIV signed 'Magnifica Humanitas' on May 15, 2026, with the Holy See releasing it publicly on May 25. The encyclical develops Catholic social teaching in relation to artificial intelligence, addressing human dignity, labor, and the common good within a tradition it traces from Rerum Novarum through Laudato Si'. Since its release, the document has drawn sharply divergent responses. Tech billionaire Peter Thiel, at the Aspen Ideas Festival, accused it of effectively serving Chinese Communist Party interests and called Pope Leo a 'useful idiot for the C.C.P.' Pope Leo has also directly engaged with President Trump, who told the UN General Assembly that fears about AI threatening humanity were a 'hoax'; Leo said he was not in 'panic mode' but that the issue requires serious dialogue. He commented specifically on Jensen Huang, noting that Huang announced a new Nvidia safety platform while simultaneously opposing government regulation of AI. Huang has argued that AI 'safety is an engineering problem, not a legal one.' Anthropic co-founder Christopher Olah attended the event at which the encyclical was announced, prompting one observer to call it 'the single greatest act of vendor lobbying I have ever seen.' AI safety researcher Miles Brundage said he found meaningful material in the document and specifically endorsed its Babel metaphor as a critique of the view that 'ASI going well is just an engineering issue.'