Magnifica Humanitas: Pope Leo XIV Drops His AI Encyclical With Anthropic's Co-Founder in the Room

Pope Leo XIV just published the first papal encyclical ever devoted entirely to artificial intelligence. Magnifica Humanitas was presented today at the Vatican, with Anthropic co-founder Christopher Olah standing right beside him.

An AI encyclical signed 135 years after Rerum Novarum

The timing was deliberate. Leo XIV signed the document on May 15, exactly 135 years after Pope Leo XIII signed Rerum Novarum, the landmark text on workers' rights during the Industrial Revolution. The message is clear: AI poses the same existential questions that factory smokestacks did in the 1890s.

The encyclical calls for robust regulation, transparency in AI models, and an outright ban on letting machines make life-or-death decisions. One line captures the tone: AI must be "freed from logics that turn it into an instrument of domination, exclusion and death."

Why Anthropic was in the room at the Vatican

Christopher Olah's presence carries serious political weight. Anthropic is currently locked in a legal battle with the Trump administration after the Pentagon designated the company a "supply chain risk" in March 2026. The dispute erupted because CEO Dario Amodei refused to let Claude be used for autonomous weapons or mass surveillance of Americans.

Watching Olah shake the pope's hand on the same day the White House is trying to dismantle Anthropic's federal contracts sends an unmistakable signal. The Vatican is siding with caution over the rush to militarize AI.

Moral authority meets the AI market

Some critics note a wrinkle: Anthropic never signed the Rome Call for AI Ethics, the Vatican's own ethical framework that Microsoft, IBM, and Cisco endorsed years ago. Olah's invitation was not a papal blessing; it was a recognition of Anthropic's outsized influence in the AI safety debate.

On substance, this encyclical could become the "Laudato Si' of AI." Not a technical rulebook, but a moral framework that lawmakers, NGOs, and researchers can reference when pushing back against unchecked deployment. While OpenAI, Google, and xAI compete for military contracts, the Vatican just gave the safety crowd a powerful new talking point.

The bottom line on Magnifica Humanitas

History's first American pope chose AI as the defining fight of his pontificate. Whether you're Catholic or not, when an institution with 1.4 billion followers picks a side, the conversation shifts. Keep an eye on how policymakers cite this document in the months ahead.