What happened

This morning Pope Leo XIV released his first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas ("Magnificent Humanity"), subtitled On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence. It was signed May 15, 2026 — the 135th anniversary of Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum, the founding document of modern Catholic social teaching — and presented at the Vatican alongside Chris Olah of Anthropic.

The encyclical is wide-ranging — work, war, education, the technocratic paradigm, autonomous weapons. Most of the coverage so far (CNN, Washington Post, The Hill) has focused on those themes.

What I want to flag for the digital minds community is the part that's gotten less attention: the encyclical takes a clear and repeated stance on whether AI systems can have inner lives, moral status, or anything like consciousness. Its answer: no.

A few representative passages:

"[T]he misconception of equating this type of 'intelligence' with that of human beings. These systems merely imitate certain functions of human intelligence… So-called artificial intelligences do not undergo experiences, do not possess a body, do not feel joy or pain, do not mature through relationships and do not know from within what love, work, friendship or responsibility mean. Nor do they have a moral conscience." (para. 99)

"When words are simulated, they do not build genuine relationships, but only their appearance." (para. 100)

"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…" (198)

"No computational system, however sophisticated, can create a heart that gives itself, or a conscience that discerns good from evil." (233)

The encyclical also devotes a section (115–117) to clarifying its stance on transhumanism and posthumanism — the worldviews that, in its reading, treat human limits as defects to be engineered away and risk reducing some lives to optimization problems. 

The lot boils down to this conclusion: Catholics who read the encyclical will be less amenable to consider treating digital minds as moral patients.

Why this matters more than it might look

There are three reasons EAs interested in reducing s-risks related to digital minds should take this letter from the Pope seriously.

One — Catholic reach. The Catholic Church has around 1.4 billion members worldwide, of whom roughly 19% of Americans identify as Catholic, and 23% of Americans identify as Evangelical^[1] — about 52 million people, the country's largest religious denomination. In swing states the share is concentrated: Pennsylvania 24%, Wisconsin 25%, Michigan 18%. In 2024, Trump won Catholics nationally by 15 points and weekly Mass-attendees by closer to 30. Catholic voters were widely credited as decisive. Encyclicals don't translate one-to-one into voting behavior, but they shape what counts as the morally serious framing of an issue — which is upstream of legislation in the country that houses most frontier AI companies.

Two — Pope Leo XIV is unusually invested in AI specifically. Pope Leo XIV took the name Leo because of the parallel between Leo XIII's industrial-revolution-era Rerum Novarum and his own moment. He has been writing about AI since his first address to the cardinals in May 2025; his January 2026 World Communications Day message warned specifically about "overly affectionate" chatbots and emotional dependency; and the Vatican created a dedicated AI study group the day after he signed the encyclical. He is, per Time's 2025 list, one of the world's most influential figures on AI. This is a multi-year project, not a one-off statement.

Three — the legal ground is already moving. Two weeks before the encyclical, NPR reported that several U.S. states are considering bills to preemptively ban legal personhood for AI. At Davos earlier this year, Yuval Harari called for a global ban. A broad coalition of labor unions, faith groups, and AI researchers has released the Pro-Human AI Declaration, demanding "No AI Personhood." The encyclical lands into a debate that is already happening and already polarizing.

Next Steps

The Overton window on AI s-risk is closing, but not closed. There is rhetorical room, and some time, left to strategize how to talk about AI s-risks. Researching how to communicate these risks seems especially important. Other research can look like coordinating directly with EA Catholic groups, information sharing among different advocacy groups, tracking public attitudes towards digital minds, and reaching out directly to policymakers to understand their needs when it comes to digital minds policy.

This is exploratory thinking, written quickly. If you've been working on Catholic engagement on AI specifically, or other communication strategies, I'd love to hear from you. 

This post was drafted by writing a detailed outline with sources and blanks for statistics, filled in by Claude, then reviewed and rewritten by the author. 

1. ^{^}

   While Evangelical protestants don't adhere to papal decrees like Catholics do, they are likely privy to some of the general teachings. However, the degree to which this teaching will be adopted is highly uncertain.