On May 25, 2026, Pope Leo XIV released the first encyclical of his papacy, Magnifica Humanitas ("The Grandeur of Humanity"), which focuses on protecting human beings in the age of artificial intelligence. The date was chosen deliberately: exactly 135 years earlier, Leo XIII issued Rerum Novarum, a landmark text concerning workers' rights during the Industrial Revolution. This modern-day Leo explicitly adopts the same stance, as the Church once again takes it upon itself to explain "new things" to humanity.
And its explanation is compelling. The document addresses personal dignity, algorithmic power, the manipulation of attention, digital addiction, and the risk of reducing humanity to mere data sets. Leo XIV goes beyond mere rhetoric: he calls for the "disarmament" of AI, condemns autonomous weaponry, and declares the very doctrine of a "just war" to be obsolete. These are powerful words. The issue, however, lies elsewhere: the Vatican discusses a new form of dominance as if it exists outside the history of dominance itself.
The central image is a choice between the Tower of Babel and the Holy City. Babel represents technological pride, unification, efficiency, and a world without God. Jerusalem embodies community, dialogue, care for the vulnerable, and the common good. However, this dichotomy is far from neutral. The Vatican is effectively proposing a trade: do not surrender humanity to algorithms, but entrust it instead to a God-given order that the Church considers the only truth.
This is where the fox enters the scene. The fox warns the coop that the wolf is dangerous. And the fox is right. Digital corporations, platforms, states, and data-center owners are indeed gaining power over human attention, behavior, knowledge, and self-definition. Algorithms rank reality, predict desires, mold fears, and transform the individual into a manageable profile.
The fox omits only one detail: it has spent centuries hunting in this very same coop, using different methods. Long before recommendation algorithms, there were dogmas, the Index of Forbidden Books, inquisitorial tribunals, censorship, educational control, the management of guilt, and a monopoly on truth. The encyclical's failing is not that it lies about AI. For the most part, it tells the truth. The problem is that this truth is selective: it exposes the control exerted by others while remaining silent about its own.
AI poses a threat to the Vatican as more than just a surveillance machine. It is a dangerous competitor in the production of meaning. For the first time, millions of people possess a tool to compare religions, verify doctrines, dissect Church history, and construct their own worldview without intermediaries. This strikes at the fundamental architecture of spiritual dependency: priest, dogma, tradition, authority, and interpretation.
There is also a telling detail. Leo XIV delivered the presentation personally rather than delegating it to his cardinals, and the guest list included AI industry insiders, such as a co-founder of Anthropic. The fox isn't just shouting from behind the fence; it is already negotiating with the wolf over how to divide the coop.
"Man must not be reduced to data," the Vatican declares. It is a valid point. Yet the Church is still not prepared to recognize the human being as a radically free creator of their own destiny. Within the document, the individual remains a creature whose truth exists prior to their choice: created by God, revealed through Christ, in need of moral guidance, and forbidden from viewing themselves as their "own author." This is not the anthropology of a sovereign subject. It is an anthropology of guardianship.
It is particularly telling that the Church denounces technocracy for its opacity and concentration of power while being one of history’s oldest engines for managing meaning. For centuries, it not only comforted the poor but also sanctified poverty, humility, and obedience as virtues. In such a system, the poor person is not a creator of abundance but an object of charity—not a subject transforming the world, but proof that the Church is indispensable.
Consequently, Magnifica Humanitas reads less like a battle between man and machine and more like a dispute between an old sovereign of meaning and a new one. The corporation says, "We know you through data." The Church responds, "We know you through God." In both cases, the individual risks remaining an object of external interpretation rather than the source of their own self-determination.
Meaningful criticism of AI must target any system that claims the right to define humanity—be it algorithmic, religious, state, or corporate. In this sense, the encyclical is useful as a diagnosis of digital power, but insufficient as a roadmap for liberation. It protects humanity from one cage by offering another—one that is older, more sacred, and therefore harder to see.
The defining question of the AI era is not which entity—the Church or the algorithm—will better protect humanity. Rather, it is whether humans can stop being objects of external definition altogether. While the Vatican fears Babel, it remains unwilling to admit that for many, the religious hierarchy itself served as a similar tower—looming and powerful, speaking for the heavens, and demanding that individuals view themselves through its eyes.
