Vatican creates AI study group as Pope Leo XIV prepares first encyclical

Vatican creates AI study group ahead of Pope Leo XIV encyclical

Pope Leo XIV has created an in-house study group on artificial intelligence as the Vatican prepares to release the pope’s first encyclical, expected to emphasize an ethics-based approach to the technology that prioritizes human dignity and peace.

In a statement, the Vatican said Leo decided to create the study group because of the acceleration of AI use and what it described as AI’s potential effects on human beings and on humanity as a whole. The Vatican also said the move reflected the church’s concern for “the dignity of every human being.”

The announcement came a day after Leo signed the encyclical, according to the Vatican. The timing marked 135 years since Pope Leo XIII issued “Rerum Novarum,” or “Of New Things,” his landmark encyclical addressing workers’ rights and the obligations that states and employers owed workers during the Industrial Revolution.

The Vatican said the new encyclical is expected to place the AI question within the church’s social teaching, which also covers labor, justice and peace. The Vatican noted that Leo XIII’s “Rerum Novarum” document became a foundation of modern Catholic social thought, and it said the current pope has already cited it in connection with what he sees as the existential questions posed by the AI revolution.

“I think that the Catholic Church in many ways is going to be the adult in the room on some of these debates about how we are going to integrate AI into the rest of our society,” said Meghan Sullivan, a philosophy professor at the University of Notre Dame who directs its ethics institute. “For sure, the pope is going to be one of the most forceful advocates for human dignity in these discussions.”

The Vatican’s increased activity on AI is expected to set up another point of tension with U.S. policy, the report said. The encyclical’s public release, expected in the coming weeks, is likely to become a flashpoint between Leo and the Trump administration, which the report said has treated rapid AI development as a matter of national economic and security strategy and has rejected international regulatory efforts to rein in AI.

The report also described the broader international context as tech companies race to build more capable AI systems while experts warn of risks, ranging from far-off threats to day-to-day concerns such as bias in algorithmic hiring. It said the United Nations adopted a new governance architecture last year after earlier multilateral efforts produced nonbinding pledges, and it said the European Union adopted an Artificial Intelligence Act in 2024 that uses a risk-based approach.

The Vatican has sought to add its voice to the debate by offering ethical guidelines for AI’s application in areas ranging from warfare to education and healthcare, the report said. The Vatican’s underlying call, according to the report, has been that AI should be used as a tool to complement—rather than replace—human intelligence. The Vatican has also warned about the environmental impact of the AI race and noted the “vast amounts of energy and water” required by AI data centers and computation.

The report cited Thomas Harmon, a theology professor at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, who said, “There are almost a billion and a half Catholics in the world, so that alone is reason to pay attention,” and added that “beyond the numbers, the Catholic Church has a deep and sophisticated tradition of thinking through what it means to be human.”

In related background, the report said the Vatican enlisted tech companies in 2020 to sign on to an AI pledge known as the Rome Call for AI Ethics. It said the pledge outlined principles for regulation including inclusiveness, accountability, impartiality and privacy, and it listed Microsoft, IBM and Cisco among companies that signed.

The report said Pope Francis in his later years called for an international treaty to regulate AI, warning that risks from technology lacking human values of compassion, mercy, morality and forgiveness were too great to trust only in the morality of AI researchers and developers. It also said Francis urged the need for political leadership to keep AI human-centric and cited support for a ban on lethal autonomous weapons.

For his part, the report said Leo has warned priests against using AI to write homilies, while also raising concerns about AI’s implications for world peace, labor and truth. It said that generative AI’s ability to misinform and deceive through deepfakes concerns Leo because, the report said, truth-searching is tied to the spirituality of his religious order.

The Vatican said Leo has also raised concerns about how AI is being used and developed in warfare in places including the Middle East and Ukraine, where, the report said, automated weapons systems use drones and other platforms. In a separate cited remark at La Sapienza, it reported Leo saying, “What is happening in Ukraine, in Gaza and the Palestinian territories, in Lebanon and in Iran illustrates the inhuman evolution of the relationship between war and new technologies in a spiral of annihilation.”