Jauhn Etienne Villaruel

Pope Leo XIV blesses by sprinkling holy water during a mass on Pentecost day at St Peter's basilica in The Vatican, on May 24, 2026. (Photo by Andreas SOLARO / AFP)

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<div><span class="fr-img-caption fr-fic fr-dib" style="width:960px;display:block" width="960"><span class="fr-img-wrap"><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1779678101018Screen Shot 2026-05-25 at 11.01.26 AM.png" style="width:960px" class="fr-fic fr-dib" width="960"/><span class="fr-inner" style="text-align:left">Pope Leo XIV blesses by sprinkling holy water during a mass on Pentecost day at St Peter&#x27;s basilica in The Vatican, on May 24, 2026. <em>Photo by Andreas Solaro/AFP</em></span></span></span></div><p>VATICAN CITY, Holy See — Pope Leo XIV will release on Monday his long-awaited manifesto on artificial intelligence (AI), a bid to address ethical and social challenges as the technology rapidly develops worldwide.</p><div><a href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/news/technology/2026/5/13/-it-basically-ruined-my-life-losing-grip-on-reality-while-using-chatgpt-1115">&#x27;It basically ruined my life&#x27;: Losing grip on reality while using ChatGPT</a></div><p>The US pope will attend the presentation of the &quot;Magnifica Humanitas&quot; (Magnificent Humanity) encyclical at the Vatican in person -- a first for the Catholic Church.</p><p>He will be joined not only by officials from the Holy See but experts including the co-founder of the American startup Anthropic, a key player in the booming AI landscape.</p><p>Anthropic is in a legal battle with the US military after refusing to change its internal policy prohibiting the use of its Claude model for lethal autonomous warfare or mass surveillance.</p><p>Leo has denounced the race for AI in the military field, saying that &quot;delegating decisions concerning the life and death of human beings to machines&quot; is a &quot;destructive spiral.&quot;</p><div><a href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/news/technology/2026/3/5/vatican-warns-ai-could-lead-to-social-control-0810">Vatican warns AI could lead to &#x27;social control&#x27;</a></div><p>Since his election a year ago as the Church&#x27;s first US pope, he has repeatedly warned of the dangers of AI, including &quot;the gradual replacement of reality by its simulation&quot;.</p><p>And he has slammed the &quot;environmental devastation&quot; caused by the &quot;frenzied race&quot; for rare earth elements, which are essential for modern electronics.</p><div><br/></div><div><strong>&#x27;WAKE-UP CALL&#x27; </strong></div><div><br/></div><p>AI could be worth up to $4.8 trillion (4.13 trillion euros) by 2033, a 25-fold increase in a decade, while concentrating its profits in the hands of a limited few, according to the UN.</p><p>UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres last year warned &quot;the window is closing to shape AI -- for peace, for justice, for humanity&quot;.</p><p>Leo has made the hot-button issue a cornerstone of his papacy in dedicating to it his first encyclical -- a document which lays the basis for Church teaching and longer-term debate.</p><p>Experts say &quot;Magnifica Humanitas&quot; could prove as influential as Pope Francis&#x27;s &quot;Laudato Si&quot;, a 2015 climate manifesto that triggered political and civic reactions worldwide.</p><p>The Vatican sees this new text as an extension of its social teachings on &quot;protecting people in the AI era&quot;.</p><p>It was signed on May 15, the 135th anniversary of a 1891 encyclical by Leo XIII which laid the foundations of the Church&#x27;s social doctrine during the Industrial Revolution.</p><p>&quot;The Industrial Revolution transformed the labour market, people&#x27;s lives, hegemony, and power dynamics,&quot; said Marijana Grbesa, political science professor at the University of Zagreb, and a speaker at an AI conference in the Vatican.</p><p>&quot;At the time, it was necessary to train individuals in the use of tools. The same is true today: we need to train and educate,&quot; she told AFP.</p><p>The pope, she said, will emphasise that &quot;education is not enough today&quot;.</p><p>&quot;It&#x27;s a wake-up call for the whole of civilisation&quot;, to &quot;be rational when we use these tools&quot;.</p><div><br/></div><div><strong>&#x27;PERCEPTION OF REALITY&#x27; </strong></div><div><br/></div><p>Leo has emphasised the need for &quot;digital literacy... to understand how algorithms shape our perception of reality.&quot;</p><p>In April he warned against the use of AI to fuel &quot;polarisation, conflict, fear, and violence&quot;. And in January he lamented &quot;the lack of transparency in the creation of the algorithms&quot; that govern the operation of various chatbots, whose use is growing rapidly worldwide.</p><p>The release of &quot;Magnificent Humanity&quot; follows several years of study by the Church of AI-related technologies.</p><p>As early as 2020, the Holy See launched the &quot;Rome Appeal for an AI Ethic&quot;, which called for new technologies to respect human dignity.</p><p>Leo&#x27;s predecessor Pope Francis spoke extensively on the subject, calling for AI to be regulated and warning that it could exacerbate inequalities.</p><div><br/></div><div><strong>© Agence France-Presse</strong></div><div><br/></div><div><br/></div><div><strong>RELATED VIDEOS</strong></div><div><strong><span class="fr-video fr-deletable fr-fvc fr-dvb fr-draggable" contenteditable="false" draggable="true"><iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QpBuzu2O-Ss?&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;rel=0" frameBorder="0" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable"></iframe></span></strong><span class="fr-video fr-deletable fr-fvc fr-dvb fr-draggable" contenteditable="false" draggable="true"><iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gN87Rtwy_AU?&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;rel=0" frameBorder="0" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable"></iframe></span><span class="fr-video fr-deletable fr-fvc fr-dvb fr-draggable" contenteditable="false" draggable="true"><iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gdUIlaoovmg?&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;rel=0" frameBorder="0" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable"></iframe></span><span class="fr-video fr-deletable fr-fvc fr-dvb fr-draggable" contenteditable="false" draggable="true"><iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EV-qbc1N048?&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;rel=0" frameBorder="0" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable"></iframe></span><br/></div>

<p>Pope Leo XIV will release on Monday his long-awaited manifesto on artificial intelligence (AI), a bid to address ethical and social challenges as the technology rapidly develops worldwide.</p>

Pope Leo XIV will release on Monday his long-awaited manifesto on artificial intelligence (AI), a bid to address ethical and social challenges as the technology rapidly develops worldwide.

Pope to release major artificial intelligence manifesto

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Pope to release major artificial intelligence manifesto

Clément Melki,

Agence France-Presse

Published May 25, 2026 11:00 AM PHT

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Updated May 25, 2026 11:05 AM PHT

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