Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical on artificial intelligence is coming: Here’s what he has said on AI so far
Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical on artificial intelligence is coming: Here’s what he has said on AI so far
Publish Date: 2026-05-14 14:33:00
Source Domain: catholicreview.org
ROME (OSV News) — As the world awaits Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical on artificial intelligence, expected to be signed May 15 and released by the Vatican by the end of the month, here is a look at what the pope has said on AI since his election a year ago.
The first American pope and a former mathematics major, Pope Leo has returned to the subject of AI again and again in speeches, messages and interviews since his election in May 2025, leading Time magazine to include him on its 2025 list of the world’s most influential people in artificial intelligence.
Pope Leo has already addressed AI in a wide range of contexts, telling teenagers gathered in a sports stadium to use AI “in such a way that if it disappeared tomorrow, you would still know how to think, warning priests not to use chatbots to write their homilies, calling on the media to preserve “human voices and faces,” and telling legislators from 68 countries that AI is a tool meant to serve humans, not replace them.
From a speech in central Africa on AI’s potential to change humanity’s “relationship with truth” to a message to tech developers gathered in Rome, Pope Leo has emerged as one of the most prominent global voices on the ethical challenges posed by artificial intelligence even before the publication of his much-anticipated encyclical.
Words of wisdom to young people on the use of AI
One of the pope’s most direct and memorable statements on AI came in response to a high school student from Honolulu, who asked Pope Leo about young people’s use of ChatGPT and other AI tools for homework from writing an essay to solving a math problem.
“Use it in such a way that if it disappeared tomorrow, you would still know how to think,” Pope Leo said.
He urged the student to “be careful that your use of AI does not limit your true human growth,” underlining the importance of knowing “how to think, how to create, how to act on your own, how to form authentic…
