On 15 May 2026 Pope Leo XIV signed Magnifica Humanitas.
Not a random date, considering that on 15 May 1891 Leo XIII published Rerum Novarum: the document that, for the first time, placed the Church at the centre of the debate on industrial capitalism and the condition of workers.
One hundred and thirty-five years later, a pope speaks to the world once again. Then the problem was the factory. Today it is the algorithm. And at the centre is no longer whoever owned the means of production, but the owners of AI’s data, models and decision-making systems.
A modern encyclical
Magnifica Humanitas starts from a precise premise, set out at the opening. Technology is not neutral. Algorithms embody the economic interests, ideologies and world views of those who fund and design them. The risk the Pontiff names is “algorithmic dehumanisation”. The moment when the complexity of human experience (with its errors, its contradictions and its fragility) will be sacrificed on the altar of probabilistic efficiency.
“We cannot allow the algorithm to replace the discernment of the spirit, nor the calculation of probabilities to erase the mystery of human freedom.”
A clear stance.
The document then devotes an entire chapter to the Big Tech monopoly. The first American pope describes Silicon Valley’s large language models as “invisible cultural decision-makers”: systems that determine what is relevant, what should circulate and what should disappear from public debate. And so the Pope called for a multilateral international governance authority, with transparency obligations on training data, a ban on mass surveillance and public oversight of strategic digital infrastructure.
An innovative approach for a pontiff. Worthy of his predecessor, Leo XIII.
The new labour question
And, referring directly to his namesake, Leo XIV’s encyclical names the “invisible workers of the digital world”. Thousands of workers, often based in developing countries, employed to label images, classify data and moderate violent content for a few cents a day. Their work makes possible the training of the models that the market then sells as advanced products. The Pope calls this dynamic “digital neocolonialism”. A formula that leaves no room for reinterpretation.
In a sense, the factory has moved, but the problem has not.
The Rerum Novarum of 1891 spoke of workers who had no access to the fruits of their own production. The Magnifica Humanitas of 2026 describes workers who lack access even to the visibility of their own contribution. Both documents pose the same question. Who owns the value that someone else has generated?
The hardest passage
Although the chapter on war is perhaps the most direct in the entire document.
Leo XIV categorically condemns lethal autonomous weapons systems (so-called killer robots). Delegating to a machine the final decision over the life or death of a human being, the Pontiff says, is an intrinsically immoral act.
The appeal is for an international treaty imposing a total ban on these technologies.
Who was in the room
For the first time in the history of the Vatican, with Magnifica Humanitas a Pope presided over the presentation of his own encyclical. In the Synod Hall, alongside the theological speakers, was Christopher Olah, co-founder of Anthropic, one of the leading research and development organisations for advanced artificial intelligence models.
Is the Church opening up to Silicon Valley? Perhaps, or perhaps the Holy See has simply decided to open itself to dialogue, engaging directly with those who build these systems. Is inviting Olah not, then, a powerful message to the whole world, and to Big Tech as well? Because when institutions wait for others to build before they regulate, the solution always arrives too late. Leo XIV chose instead to take a seat at the table, before the rules had already been written by someone else.
Is history repeating itself?
Rerum Novarum, in 1891, was a document that many underestimated at the time. It looked like a religious text on an economic problem: and therefore, an inconsequential rant. Instead, it proved to be one of the most enduring interpretative frameworks of the twentieth century. It shaped political movements, national legislation and welfare models.
Magnifica Humanitas arrives at a moment when artificial intelligence systems are going through the same phase that industrial capitalism went through in the late nineteenth century. A phase of maximum expansion, with rules still to be defined and unstable balances of power.
Whoever enters this phase with a clear position will own it.
And now AI is no longer just a Big Tech issue.
New Connections (FAQ)
What sets Magnifica Humanitas apart from earlier Church documents on artificial intelligence?
Earlier documents, such as the 2020 Rome Call signed by the Pontifical Academy for Life, operated at the level of general ethical principles. Magnifica Humanitas addresses specific issues. It names the Big Tech monopoly, condemns autonomous weapons systems in definitive doctrinal language, and calls for international governance structures with precise characteristics. It is an act of institutional positioning, not merely of moral guidance.
Is the presence of an Anthropic co-founder at the presentation a contradiction of the encyclical’s critical content?
No. It is consistent with the logic of the document. The encyclical does not condemn the development of artificial intelligence. It builds a framework for its governance. Inviting those who design these systems to the presentation is a way of stating that governance is built in direct relationship with those who produce the technologies, not in opposition to them. Criticism of monopoly and concentrated control does not require distance from the builders. It requires shared responsibility.
What practical implications does this document have for organisations that govern their own communication?
Magnifica Humanitas formalises an operating principle that the most solid organisations are already applying. Automated communication without strategic oversight does not produce efficiency. It produces loss of control over the narrative. The document offers an authoritative reference for those who need to make the case, internally or externally, for investing in communication governance as well as in production automation.
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