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Pope Leo XIV and Anthropic Launch First Encyclical on AI

Tuesday, May 19, 2026
5 min read
Pope Leo XIV and Anthropic Launch First Encyclical on AI

Pope Leo XIV and the co-founder of Anthropic are actually launching the pontiff’s first encyclical on May 25th. That’s what the Vatican said on Monday.

It feels like a big deal, doesn't it?

Leo, who has made artificial intelligence a real priority for his young pontificate, is seriously worried about AI in warfare. He’s called for some kind of monitoring of how this technology is actually being used.

This whole thing comes after the Pope set up an in-house study group on AI. Why? Because of the acceleration. The potential effects on human beings, on humanity itself, and the Church’s deep concern for the dignity of every single person.

The encyclical itself, he signed it on May 15th. That’s exactly 135 years since his namesake, Leo XIII, put out his big piece, Rerum Novarum , or Of New Things . A long stretch of history, you know.

The event is going to have some heavy hitters there. Christopher Olah from Anthropic will be there. Plus, two of the Vatican’s top cardinals: Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, the doctrine chief, and Cardinal Michael Czerny, the development chief.

Leo told them, days after his election in 2025, that the Catholic Church owed it to the world to offer up the “treasury of its social teaching.” He wants it used to confront the mess AI is causing regarding human dignity, justice, and labor.

It’s a complicated mess.

Meanwhile, things on the political side are moving too. Back in February, the US administration, led by Donald Trump, ordered all its agencies to stop using Anthropic’s AI technology. They slapped major penalties on anyone who refused to let the US military use that kind of AI.

Anthropic fought back. They sued the US administration, claiming they were retaliating illegally just because they tried to put limits on how their tech could be deployed.

It all seems connected, somehow.

This whole AI thing started bubbling up long before the Vatican got involved. Days before the Pope started this AI push, Trump ended his trip to China. That trip involved a lot of AI business. Elon Musk was there, naturally. His X platform, Grok, runs on AI. And Jensen Huang, the Nvidia CEO, he just got federal approval to sell those H200 AI chips to Chinese buyers.

So you have the religious push, the corporate legal fight, and this whole background noise about who’s controlling the tech flow. It’s all happening at once.

Written by Gree News Team — Senior Editorial Board

Gree News Team covers international news and global affairs at Gree News. Our collective of senior editors is dedicated to providing independent, accurate, and responsible journalism for a global audience.

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