Pope Leo XIV will unveil Magnifica Humanitas — the pontiff’s first encyclical on artificial intelligence — in Vatican City on May 25, according to a Vatican announcement reported by the Associated Press. The Vatican described it as a document on the care of human dignity in the era of AI, positioning the issue within the Church’s broader social teaching.
The launch is expected to differ from previous encyclical presentations, which are typically held in the Vatican press room with a small group of officials and guests who respond to reporters. This time, the Vatican scheduled a formal event in the main Vatican auditorium, with a wider cast of church officials and speakers, according to the AP report.
Among the planned main presenters are two senior Vatican cardinals: Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, described as doctrine chief, and Cardinal Michael Czerny, described as development chief. The Vatican said Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican secretary of state, would deliver a conclusion, and Pope Leo XIV would then speak and provide a final blessing.
The Vatican also said the May 25 presentation will include Christopher Olah, the co-founder of artificial intelligence company Anthropic, as one of the lay speakers. It will also include theologians Anna Rowlands and Leocadie Lushombo, the Vatican said in its announcement, as reported by the AP.
Olah’s presence is notable in part because Anthropic has focused on safety and risk-mitigation in its AI research, the AP reported. The company has also been tied to a U.S. policy dispute: the Trump administration ordered all U.S. agencies to stop using Anthropic’s AI technology in February, according to the report, and imposed other major penalties on refusal to allow the U.S. military unrestricted access to the company’s AI.
Anthropic, the AP said, is suing the administration and has accused it of retaliating illegally due to efforts to impose limits on how the technology is deployed. The AP report also said Pope Leo XIV has made AI a priority of his young pontificate and has expressed concern about AI in warfare, calling for monitoring of how such technology is used.
The Vatican said Pope Leo XIV signed the encyclical on May 15, 135 years to the day after Pope Leo XIII signed “Rerum Novarum,” an encyclical on workers’ rights and the obligations of states and employers during the Industrial Revolution. The AP report said Pope Leo has already cited Rerum Novarum in relation to the AI revolution, describing what he views as the same kind of existential questions that arose over a century ago.
The AP report added background on Anthropic’s leadership and broader positioning. It said Anthropic’s chief Dario Amodei previously worked at OpenAI before he and a group left in 2021 over disagreements with OpenAI chief Sam Altman about AI safety, and that Anthropic has promised a clearer safety focus on artificial general intelligence.