Excerpts from Pope Leo XIV's first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas
On preserving the human person in the age of artificial intelligence
Magnifica Humanitas, “Magnificent Humanity,” Pope Leo XIV’s first social encyclical, issued on 25 May 2026, addresses humanity’s encounter with the digital revolution and artificial intelligence through the lens of Catholic Social Doctrine. The Pontiff traces the Church’s social teaching from Leo XIII to the present, reaffirming its foundational principles: human dignity, the common good, subsidiarity, and solidarity.
He then applies them to the urgent questions of our res novae, “new things”: the ethics of AI, the future of work, the integrity of truth, and the growing culture of power. The encyclical closes with a call to build a civilization of love grounded in relationship and communion.
Below are 16 key passages from the document.
1. Technology has reshaped human power like never before
The power and prevalence of emerging technologies are interwoven into the fabric of daily life, shaping decision-making processes and deeply affecting the collective imagination: ‘Never has humanity had such power over itself.’ New technologies open up a horizon extending in directions that are imaginable but not yet fully predictable.
2. Work is a human good, not just an economic function
Work is not considered simply as a problem to be dealt with or a means of generating income, but a fundamental good for the person, a principle of economic activity and the key to the entire societal question. Through work, human beings bring their freedom, creativity and capacity for cooperation into play, contributing to the cultural and moral elevation of society.
3. Universities must rise to meet the digital revolution
I would like to encourage academic institutions and universities to give fresh impetus to these principles, and to apply them in a way that will be relevant and effective in addressing the digital revolution. In this way, theological and philosophical enquiry will be able to further explore and support the Church’s pastoral journey, and contribute to the Magisterium’s task of enlightening the consciences of the faithful and guiding their efforts to make the life of our societies more just and fraternal.
4. Grand ideologies mean nothing without individual human flourishing
It is individuals that matter, each and every person, together with their families. Social movements, communal ideologies and grand political proclamations in favor of a population are worthless unless they lead to the flourishing of persons—men and women—with their inalienable rights. Similarly, it is not enough to extol individual freedom or private enterprise if we then allow a multitude of people to continue living without decent work, protections or access to basic necessities.
5. When technology becomes the measure of all things, humanity suffers
Pope Francis denounced the growing dominance of a technocratic paradigm in our globalized world: the tendency to let the logic of efficiency, control and profit alone shape personal, social and economic decisions. This makes it clear that technology is not simply a tool. When [technology] becomes the standard by which everything is judged, it begins to dictate what matters and what can be discarded, reducing creation to an object of exploitation and human beings to mere cogs in a system driven toward ever greater efficiency.
6. Progress without progress “in being” is not enough
Technological progress—valuable in itself—requires careful discernment of the anthropological vision that guides it and the ends it pursues. If technological development advances without a corresponding ethical and social progress, the result may be an increase in means without a growth in humanity: ‘having more’ without ‘being more.’ In such a scenario, there is a risk that individuals will be evaluated principally according to the outcomes they produce.
7. Automated systems cannot replace human compassion in critical decisions
The use of AI is never a purely technical matter: when it enters processes that affect people’s lives, it touches on rights, opportunities, status and freedom. Important and sensitive decisions—concerning employment, credit, access to public services or even a person’s reputation—risk being fully delegated to automated systems that do not know ‘compassion, mercy, forgiveness, and above all, the hope that people are able to change,’ and can therefore give rise to new forms of exclusion. There are clearly harmful uses, such as the manipulation of information or violations of privacy. Yet there is also a subtler danger, for when AI systems present themselves as neutral and objective, they end up reflecting and reinforcing the stereotypes or ideological bias of their designers and developers.
8. Ethical AI scrutiny must go beyond purpose—it must examine design
If a system is designed or used in a way that treats some lives as less worthy, or excludes them without the possibility of appeal, then it is not merely a tool ‘to be used well,’ since it has already introduced criteria that contradict the inalienable dignity of the human person. For this reason, ethical discernment cannot be limited to asking whether we are using a system for good or bad purposes; it must also examine how that system is designed and what vision of the human person and society is embedded in the data and models that guide it.
9. Accountability must be built into every stage of AI development
For AI to respect human dignity and truly serve the common good, responsibility must be clearly defined at every stage: from those who design and develop these systems to those who use them and rely on them for concrete decisions.
10. Calling for “aligned” AI is not enough without open ethical debate
We cannot be satisfied with merely calling for the moralization of machines—the so-called ‘alignment’ of AI with human values—without also having the courage to insist on a further condition: the possibility of openly discussing the ethical frameworks involved and subjecting them to shared standards of social justice.
11. Communities must be active participants in AI oversight, not passive recipients
It is essential that the use of AI, especially when it touches on public goods and fundamental rights, be guided by clear criteria and effective oversight, grounded in participation and subsidiarity. Communities and intermediary organizations must not be reduced to passive recipients of decisions made elsewhere; they must be able to contribute to discernment and oversight.
12. Disarming AI means refusing to let technical power become the right to rule
Disarming AI means freeing it from the mentality of ‘armed’ competition, which today is not limited simply to the military context, but is also an economic and cognitive phenomenon. This entails a race for ever more powerful algorithms and larger datasets, driven by the desire to secure geopolitical or commercial dominance. To disarm means discrediting the assumption that technical power automatically confers the right to govern. To disarm does not mean rejecting technology, but preventing it from dominating humanity.
13. The deepest risk of AI is the normalization of an anti-human vision
What does it mean to safeguard our humanity? The risk extends beyond the misuse of certain technologies. More gravely, the pervasive technocratic paradigm in which we are immersed, and that is amplified by the digital revolution and AI, threatens to normalize an anti-human vision. In that vision, the fullness of life is equated with having more, reducing weakness, eliminating uncertainty and exerting total control. When efficiency becomes the ultimate measure of value, human beings are tempted to see themselves as a project to be optimized rather than as persons called to relationship and communion.
14. Humanity flourishes not despite limitations, but through them
Our relationship with life seems to be in crisis today. Everything that appears as a ‘limit’—incapacity, illness, old age, suffering, vulnerability — tends to be seen primarily as a defect to be corrected, rather than as a reality through which our humanity matures and opens itself to relationship. And yet we must remember that humanity flourishes not despite limitations, but often through them.
15. Moral judgment cannot be reduced to calculation
Sometimes there is talk of ‘artificial moral agents,’ as if machines were able to distinguish between right and wrong with greater consistency than a human being. Yet moral judgment cannot be reduced to calculation, for it involves conscience, personal responsibility and the recognition of the other as a person.
16. The civilization of love is built through small, steadfast acts
The civilization of love will not arise from a single or spectacular gesture, but from the sum total of small and steadfast acts of fidelity that serve as a bulwark against dehumanization. For this reason, it is worthwhile pausing to reflect on some aspects of how we, each in our own way, can cooperate in building the civilization of love.