{"id":980,"date":"2026-06-02T22:39:21","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T22:39:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=980"},"modified":"2026-06-02T22:39:21","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T22:39:21","slug":"how-catholics-reacted-to-pope-leos-teachings-on-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=980","title":{"rendered":"How Catholics reacted to Pope Leo\u2019s teachings on AI"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

This article was first published in the <\/i>State of Faith newsletter<\/i>. Sign up to receive the newsletter in your inbox each Monday night.<\/i><\/p>\n

Read more Controversial DOJ fund is \u2018off the table,\u2019 top Republicans say<\/a><\/p>\n

A week after the release of Pope Leo\u2019s sprawling, nearly 42,000-word encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, the conversation about the document is still going strong. The encyclical sparked lively discussions about the new intersection of religion and technology, notably because Leo unveiled it alongside Chris Olah, the co-founder of Anthropic, one of the world\u2019s leading AI companies.<\/p>\n

First of all, a papal encyclical is a big deal for Catholics. I\u2019ve seen it described as something awaited with a similar anticipation as Christmas. Some have even turned the reading of the encyclical into a social event. Plough magazine editor Susannah Black Roberts posted on X that she was heading to a hotel lobby to read the encyclical and was wondering if anyone wanted to join her. One Catholic theologian offered thoughts on how to read the encyclical. (Take the time to digest it, pay attention to the structure, create a dialogue to interpret the text.) <\/p>\n

I wrote about the document and what stood out to me on my first engagement with the text on the day it came out. But I\u2019ve been returning to it and finding things that I\u2019d missed or skipped over. <\/p>\n

Pope Leo dives into a lot: the dignity of work, economic inequality, privacy, misinformation, education, democracy, warfare, environmental costs and the concentration of technological power in the hands of a few companies.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the era of artificial intelligence, when human dignity is threatened by new forms of dehumanization, ours is the pressing duty to remain profoundly human,\u201d Leo writes.<\/p>\n

Prior to the release of the encyclical, many on the right expected a \u201choly war against AI,\u201d said Christopher Hale, a senior fellow at Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good who authors a Substack, \u201cLetters from Leo,\u201d in a Newsweek interview. <\/p>\n

What they got was not that. \u201cYou really saw the middle way,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Pope Leo acknowledges AI\u2019s potential in science and innovation while also sounding the alarm that technology can advance inequality and erode human dignity and relationships. To Leo, AI can be a valuable tool that \u201ccalls for a measured and vigilant approach.\u201d<\/p>\n

Catholics praised the timely and thorough engagement with the moral implications of AI on various aspects of life. <\/p>\n

\u201cFrom here on, I don\u2019t think anyone will be able to speak meaningfully about the future of humanity in the age of AI without coming to terms with this document and taking it seriously,\u201d Notre Dame Law School professor Paolo Carozza said in a statement. \u201cWhile it is very direct about the many dangers already arising out of algorithmic technologies, it is decidedly not an anti-technology document. The real question is not whether AI is good or bad, but whether the ways we develop and deploy the technology help individuals and communities become more humane, just and participatory, or whether instead they foster exclusion, control and inequality.\u201d<\/p>\n

But for some Catholics, Pope Leo didn\u2019t go far enough in grappling with the existential and technological threats of AI on humanity. <\/p>\n

Matthew Walther, the editor of the Catholic literary journal The Lamp, wrote in The New York Times: \u201cDespite voicing concerns about the dangers that A.I. poses to humanity, the encyclical nonetheless seems to envision a world in which it is simply a tool, rather than an evil that all people should reject.\u201d <\/p>\n

Read more Former Salt Lake Bees, Los Angeles Angels player reportedly enrolls at SMU to play football \u2014\u00a0eight years after graduating high school<\/a><\/p>\n

Walther writes that the document underestimates AI\u2019s potential to make existing social problems worse \u2014 for instance, the potential of AI to transform medicine from a \u201chumanistic profession\u201d into \u201can algorithmic conception of health care.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some technologists took issue that the document didn\u2019t address what getting to Artificial General Intelligence would do to humanity, The Verge noted. Dean W. Ball, a senior fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation quoted in the story, wrote on X that the encyclical could have been \u201cmore engaged with where AI is headed.\u201d The choice not to delve into doomsday scenarios is perhaps the practical approach, several commentators noted, with the goal to root the believers into here and now. <\/p>\n

One of the points from the encyclical that I have continued to think about was not so much about AI directly, but instead, what life would look like without some of the experiences it threatens to eliminate and how that would change our values and relationships.<\/p>\n

In his teaching, Pope Leo invited believers to embrace human weakness and its limitations, and avoid rushing to have the uncomfortable, inefficient and painful features of humanity corrected by technology and machines.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday, the human desire for fullness of life is at risk of being misled by deceitful goals, such as the prospect of a technology that promises to free us from all weakness, and models of well-being that leave behind entire populations. All too often, we place our hope in unlimited \u2018upgrades,\u2019 in forms of progress that exacerbate inequalities, and in immediate solutions incapable of healing people\u2019s wounds,\u201d Pope Leo wrote. <\/p>\n

Experiences of suffering, aging and physical weakness are not \u201cdefects,\u201d as the technocrats might want us to believe, but \u201ca reality through which our humanity matures.\u201d The pope also defended human errors: \u201cFor an algorithm, an error is a flaw to be corrected; for a person, however, an error can be a catalyst for profound change.\u201d <\/p>\n

Human limitations and suffering create space for compassion for others, generosity, and closeness with the divine. Accepting these limitations could be the origin of strength. For people of faith, it\u2019s through the understanding of human limitations that faith and a relationship with the divine are made possible. <\/p>\n

Fresh off the press<\/h3>\n

I attended former Utah Sen. Mitt Romney\u2019s address to the Harvard Business School graduates during the Class Day celebration. He talked about focusing less on money and business, and more on people and family. <\/p>\n

Two pieces that I\u2019d been working on for weeks and months came out this weekend. <\/p>\n