Pope Leo XIV published his first encyclical today — a formal papal letter carrying the full weight of Catholic tradition — and it's about artificial intelligence. The document, titled Magnifica Humanitas, calls for safeguarding human dignity in the age of AI.
Standing nearby at the launch: Christopher Olah, a co-founder of Anthropic, one of the companies actively building the systems the letter was written about.
Pope Leo XIV signed it on May 15. That date is not random. May 15 is the 135th anniversary of Pope Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum — the famous 1891 encyclical about the Industrial Revolution. The current Pope picked his name, picked this topic, picked this date. He is telling everyone exactly what he thinks AI is.
There's something almost cinematic about that image. The oldest institution in Western civilization. The newest form of intelligence. Same stage.
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