Pope Leo XIV used his first papal manifesto, known as Encyclical, to question the social, political, and military implications of AI development.
While affirming that the Church must “draw nourishment” from science, the 84-page letter repeatedly denounces “the idolatry of profit” and the military-industrial complex that, he argues, are defining features of the political and economic landscape. At the heart of the document is a call to “disarm AI”—defined as freeing the technology from “the mentality of armed competition,” which he says has become a pervasive economic and cognitive phenomenon.
In a notable historical pivot, the Pope also condemned the Church’s role in slavery, warning that new forms of slavery are now fueled by economic chains and digital infrastructures.
“Technology is never neutral, because it takes on the characteristics of those who devise, finance, regulate and use it,” he wrote, urging a global effort to build pluralistic societies and free technology from monopolistic control.
