Pope Leo XIV discussed the challenges of artificial intelligence at the Vatican during a meeting with the Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice Foundation and the Strategic Alliance of Catholic Research Universities. The Pope highlighted the impact of AI on critical thinking, discernment, learning, and interpersonal relationships. He expressed concern about the vulnerability of children and young people in the context of AI, particularly regarding their freedom, spirituality, and development. The Pope emphasized the need for AI to serve the common good and not just the powerful.
10 days ago
Pope Leo XIV delivered an address on December 5, 2025, during a Vatican meeting with the Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice Foundation and the Strategic Alliance of Catholic Research Universities.1 2 3 4
He focused on artificial intelligence (AI) as a transformative force affecting daily lives worldwide.1 4
The pontiff urged reflection on ensuring AI promotes the common good rather than concentrating power and wealth among elites.2 3
AI impacts core human attributes like critical thinking, discernment, learning, and interpersonal relationships.1 2 4
This technology influences millions globally, raising questions about its role in society.3
Pope Leo XIV emphasized that humans must remain active collaborators in creation, not passive consumers of AI-generated content.4
Human dignity stems from the capacity to reflect, make free choices, love unconditionally, and form genuine relationships.1 2
AI opens creative possibilities but threatens openness to truth, beauty, wonder, and contemplation.3 4
Safeguarding these human elements is crucial for managing AI's consequences and fostering balanced growth.1
The Pope expressed deep concern for youth, whose freedom, spirituality, intellectual, and neurological development are at risk.2 3
Access to vast data should not replace deriving personal meaning and value from information.4
He stressed educating young people to use AI tools thoughtfully, promoting truth-seeking, spiritual life, and expanded horizons for decision-making.1
Confidence in human oversight of AI is eroding due to perceptions of its inevitable, uncontrolled path.2 4
Pope Leo XIV called for restoring faith in humanity's ability to direct technology toward positive ends.3
This requires teaching youth to engage AI with intelligence, avoiding cultural models that marginalize deeper existential questions.1
Achieving AI's benefits demands coordinated efforts from politics, institutions, businesses, education, and religious communities.4
Widespread participation is essential, ensuring even the humblest voices are respected over partisan or profit-driven interests.2 3
The Pope praised the groups' research as a valuable contribution and encouraged continued work guided by Scripture and Church teaching.1
How should AI uphold human dignity and common good?
In the Catholic tradition, artificial intelligence (AI) is viewed not merely as a technological tool but as an extension of human creativity that must always serve the inherent dignity of the person, created in God's image. This dignity, described as "ontological" and rooted in being willed, created, and loved by God, demands that AI development and application prioritize the human person over efficiency or profit. As Pope Leo XIV has emphasized, technology's benefits in fields like medicine must never eclipse the fragility of human life or the irreplaceable value of personal relationships. Similarly, the Church teaches that AI should supplement human judgment rather than replace it, avoiding any reduction of people to mere data points or algorithmic outputs. By centering ethical discernment, AI can foster true progress that enhances fraternity and justice, aligning with the Gospel call to love and serve one another.
The common good, a cornerstone of Catholic social teaching, requires AI to benefit all members of society, especially the vulnerable, and to promote integral human development. Pope Leo XIV, in addressing global AI initiatives, has called for responsibility and discernment to ensure AI builds "bridges of dialogue and fostering fraternity," transcending mere utility to uphold human and social values. This means regulatory frameworks must be human-centered, incorporating principles of subsidiarity where decisions are made at the most local level possible, while ensuring global coordination to prevent harm. For instance, AI in healthcare or education should empower the poor and marginalized, closing digital divides rather than widening them, as unchecked deployment risks perpetuating discrimination and inequality. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) underscores that AI must assist the needy, with safeguards against biases that exploit vulnerabilities, echoing Vatican II's vision of technology advancing a "more human order of social relations."
To uphold dignity and the common good, AI must be developed with moral discernment at every stage—from conception to implementation. The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith's document Antiqua et Nova insists that AI's ends, means, and overarching vision be evaluated against human dignity, ensuring it promotes the authentic good of the person. This involves rejecting the "technocratic paradigm" where technology solves all problems in isolation, sidelining fraternity for efficiency; instead, AI should integrate ethical criteria like freedom, responsibility, and care for creation. Pope Leo XIV extends this to builders of AI, urging them to infuse systems with justice, solidarity, and reverence for life, viewing innovation as participation in God's creative act. Key principles include:
Transparency and Accountability: AI systems require human oversight to maintain truth and prevent manipulation, such as deepfakes that erode trust and democratic processes. Users and developers share responsibility, with algorithms designed to avoid discrimination based on race, origin, or status.
Respect for Relationships and Vulnerability: In medicine, AI must enhance, not replace, interpersonal care, recognizing healthcare professionals as "guardians and servants of human life," particularly in fragile stages like infancy or illness. For youth, AI should support intellectual and spiritual growth, not hinder it by confusing data access with true wisdom oriented toward the True and Good.
Sustainability and Inclusivity: Drawing from Latin American pastoral perspectives, AI must respect the "common home" by promoting sustainable practices and equitable participation, ensuring no one is excluded from its benefits. This aligns with Pope Francis's earlier warnings against AI imposing uniform models that stifle cultural diversity.
The Rome Call for AI Ethics reinforces these by mandating that AI protect freedoms, empower individuals, and care for the environment, treating every person as equal in dignity. Ecclesial efforts, like those in the Builders AI Forum, further call for interdisciplinary collaboration between faith, reason, and technology to evangelize through AI tools that reflect love and relationship with God.
While AI holds transformative potential, the Church cautions against its misuse, which could devastate lives if aligned with anti-human ideologies. Historical precedents warn of technology's destructive power when divorced from ethics, yet properly directed, it can heal and unite. A primary risk is the erosion of human uniqueness—AI simulates reasoning but cannot replicate moral discernment or genuine relationships, potentially leading to an "eclipse of the sense of what is human." To counter this, the Church advocates for education and formation, inviting pastors, educators, and families to guide AI's integration with a "wisdom of heart" that prioritizes spiritual maturity over algorithmic efficiency. Where sources highlight tensions, such as between innovation and equity, recent teachings like Antiqua et Nova take precedence, emphasizing that true progress is "healthier, more human, more social, and more integral."
In pastoral contexts, particularly from Latin America, the Church urges a prophetic stance: critically accompanying AI's evolution to ensure it recognizes dignity as intrinsic, not contingent on capabilities or success. If sources fall short on specifics like emerging regulations, they nonetheless provide robust anthropological foundations for discernment.
Ultimately, AI upholds human dignity and the common good when it is ethically managed as a servant of the person, guided by Catholic principles of dignity, fraternity, and subsidiarity. By fostering inclusive, transparent, and relational technologies, AI can contribute to a world of greater solidarity and peace, reflecting the Creator's design. As Pope Leo XIV entrusts such efforts to Mary, Seat of Wisdom, may all involved in AI strive for innovations that honor God's gift of intelligence in service to humanity.