Pope Leo XIV signed his first encyclical on May 16, 2026, 135 years after Pope Leo XIII dated Rerum Novarum, and created a study group on artificial intelligence to prepare the document. The encyclical is expected to emphasize an ethics-based approach to AI prioritizing human dignity and place the AI question in Catholic social teaching context for almost a billion and a half Catholics worldwide. Public release is expected in coming weeks.
AI study group creation
- ▪The Vatican announced the creation of Pope Leo XIV's AI study group on May 16, 2026
First encyclical on AI ethics
- ▪Meghan Sullivan is a philosophy professor at the University of Notre Dame who directs its ethics institute
- ▪The public release of Pope Leo XIV's encyclical is expected in the coming weeks after May 17, 2026
- ▪Pope Leo XIV signed his first encyclical on May 16, 2026
- ▪Pope Leo XIV signed his encyclical 135 years to the day after Pope Leo XIII dated his encyclical Rerum Novarum on May 16, 1891
Vatican AI engagement history
- ▪In 2020, the Vatican created the Rome Call for AI Ethics, which outlined core principles for AI regulation including inclusiveness, accountability, impartiality, and privacy
- ▪Pope Francis addressed a special session on AI at the Group of Seven in 2024
- ▪Pope Leo XIII's encyclical Rerum Novarum addressed workers' rights, the limits of capitalism, and the obligations that states and employers owed workers as the Industrial Revolution was underway
- ▪Pope Francis called for a ban on the use of lethal autonomous weapons at the Group of Seven AI session in 2024
- ▪Pope Leo XIII's encyclical Rerum Novarum became the foundation of modern Catholic social thought
US-China AI development tensions
- ▪The United Nations adopted a new governance architecture to rein in AI in 2025
- ▪Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang secured federal approval to sell H200 AI chips to Chinese buyers
- ▪The European Union's Artificial Intelligence Act applies a risk-based approach to its AI rules
- ▪The European Union adopted its Artificial Intelligence Act in 2024
- ▪Elon Musk traveled with Donald Trump on Air Force One during Trump's May 2026 visit to China
- ▪U.S. President Donald Trump visited China in May 2026
Pope Leo XIV's AI concerns
- ▪Pope Leo XIV questioned generative AI's possible repercussions on humanity's openness to truth and beauty in a June 2025 speech to an AI conference
- ▪Pope Leo XIV told cardinals days after his 2025 election that the Catholic Church owed it to the world to offer its social teaching to confront challenges posed by AI on human dignity, justice, and labor
- ▪Pope Leo XIV called for monitoring how AI is being used and developed in warfare in the Middle East and Ukraine
- ▪Pope Leo XIV spoke at La Sapienza university during the week of May 11-17, 2026
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