Pope decries the rise of AI-directed warfare, saying it leads to a spiral of annihilation
Pope Leo XIV criticized AI‑driven warfare and warned it could trigger a spiral of annihilation. He urged peace in the Middle East and Ukraine during his address at Rome’s La Sapienza University. The pope highlighted the surge in military spending, especially in Europe, and its negative impact on education and healthcare. He met Palestinian students arriving via a humanitarian corridor from Gaza, emphasizing the university’s role in supporting displaced scholars.
5 months ago
Pope Leo XIV used his visit to Rome’s La Sapienza University to warn that the growing use of artificial‑intelligence‑driven weapons is pushing the world toward a “spiral of annihilation.” He linked the surge in military spending to the suffering in Ukraine, Gaza, Lebanon and Iran, urged tighter oversight of AI technologies, and highlighted the plight of young Palestinian students arriving in Italy through a humanitarian corridor. The remarks preview themes expected in his forthcoming encyclical on AI and ethics. 1
Leo XIV addressed a mixed audience of faculty and students, marking the first papal visit to the campus since 2008.
He condemned the sharp rise in defense budgets, especially in Europe, saying they divert resources from education and health and enrich “elites who care nothing for the common good.” 1
The pontiff identified AI as a critical threat when applied to weapons systems.
He called for robust monitoring of AI development in both military and civilian spheres to ensure human accountability and to prevent the escalation of conflicts. 1
During the speech, Leo XIV appealed for an end to hostilities in Ukraine and the Middle East, describing the current wars as evidence of an “inhuman evolution” of warfare. 1
The visit included a meeting with newly arrived Palestinian students, part of a government‑backed humanitarian corridor that brings refugees from Gaza to study and receive medical care in Italy.
One student, 19‑year‑old Nada Rahim Jouda, expressed gratitude for the safety and opportunity in Rome while worrying about her family still in Gaza. 1
Leo XIV signaled that AI’s moral and societal implications will be a central focus of his first encyclical, slated for release in the coming weeks. 1
Evaluate Catholic doctrine on warfare and the moral limits of technology
Catholic teaching treats war as a grave evil that may, in limited circumstances, be morally permitted—but only under strict conditions—and it judges the morality of any “technological” escalation (including autonomy in lethal systems) by asking whether it accords with human dignity, ethical purpose, and control rather than merely what is technically feasible.
Catholic “Just War” teaching is traditionally a moral theology of limits, not a theory for celebrating war. Even when a conflict is judged “just” on one side, the overall condition of war is still treated as an evil: it is an affliction and can involve sinful choice by at least one party.
A key way Catholic thought keeps the doctrine from becoming a moral cover for violence is by insisting that “just war” refers to acts of a rightful party under certain moral requirements, not to a glorified condition of war itself. Reichberg notes the doctrinal importance of terminology: scholastics tended to treat there being “no state of war but only acts,” whereas later usage can treat war as a state. This helps explain why some misunderstand “just war” as if it endorsed war qua condition.
In the Aquinas/Augustine line, a “just war” occurs when—out of necessity—legitimate political authority authorizes the proportional use of collective force on behalf of the common good for a just cause, with right moral intention whose aim is peace.
Moats summarizes the “trifold” Aquinas criteria (legitimate authority / just cause / right intention) and situates additional elements (like necessity and proportionality) within that threefold structure, with peace as the aim.
There is genuine scholarly controversy about how the contemporary Magisterium relates to earlier classical formulations. Reichberg discusses the claim (associated with James Turner Johnson) that contemporary just-war teaching is “radically at odds” with the classical presumption against injustice versus a “presumption against war.”
But Reichberg’s own analysis argues that alleged discontinuity is often produced by equivocation (differences in vocabulary and rhetorical style), and that where discontinuity exists it is also partly due to re-arrangements of elements prompted by technological developments (e.g., nuclear weapons and proportionality calculations).
This matters for “evaluation,” because it suggests Catholic doctrine is not merely reacting emotionally to events; rather, it seeks moral coherence while adapting how to assess conditions created by new capabilities.
Even when war is discussed within “just war” theory, Catholic reasoning insists that not everything that is “effective” or even “militarily achievable” is morally permissible.
Reichberg cites Pius XII’s Christmas message (1948) to emphasize that the Christian will not turn “a question of national prestige or honor into an argument for war or even a threat of war.”
More broadly, the same line of analysis concludes that some modalities of classical jus ad bellum are disallowed in light of Christian principles as articulated by Pius XII and successors—e.g., the rejection of using certain injurious rationales (like honor/prestige) to justify war.
Reichberg explicitly links doctrinal emphasis to technological change: nuclear weapons have led to a more pronounced focus on proportionality calculations than obtained previously.
In Catholic moral terms, proportionality is not “maximize safety for your side” but rather an attempt to judge whether the harms inflicted by force are proportionate to the moral objective being sought. The more catastrophic the potential effects of a weapon, the harder proportionality becomes to satisfy—and the more urgent careful moral evaluation becomes.
Catholic teaching does not treat technology as intrinsically evil; it treats it as powerful and therefore morally accountable. The moral issue is often whether technology is used in a way that aligns with human dignity, justice, and peace rather than substituting technical capability for moral judgment.
The Catechism states:
“Basic scientific research, as well as applied research, is a significant expression of man’s dominion over creation… By themselves however they cannot disclose the meaning of existence and of human progress. Science and technology are ordered to man… hence they find in the person and in his moral values both evidence of their purpose and awareness of their limits.”
So, the Church’s moral framework is person-centered: technology’s “what can be done” does not determine the “what should be done.”
One Catholic theological framing emphasizes that dominion includes “the priority of ethics over technology, in the primacy of the person over things, and in the superiority of spirit over matter.” Progress must be measured by this ethical priority.
This is especially important for warfare technologies, where the temptation is to treat technical options as neutral tools and to let “capability” replace moral discernment.
The Church has increasingly addressed advanced weaponry precisely where technological systems risk replacing human moral agency with automated decision-making.
Pope Francis (addressing AI at the G7) makes the moral boundary very clear:
“We need to… reconsider the development and use of devices like the so-called ‘lethal autonomous weapons’… This starts from an effective and concrete commitment to introduce ever greater and proper human control. No machine should ever choose to take the life of a human being.”
This aligns with a broader claim in the same address: the benefits or harms of AI (including weapons) depend on use, but also that advanced tools can outgrow the practical control of users/programmers.
Pope Francis also calls for what he terms “algor-ethics,” meaning an ethical development of algorithms that ensures a “competent and shared review” of how technology integrates relationships between human beings.
In moral terms, this supports the idea that technology—especially one embedded in legal, military, or life-and-death contexts—requires structured ethical governance rather than leaving choices solely to engineering incentives.
From the sources, a coherent Catholic evaluative approach emerges:
Catholic doctrine on warfare insists that war is never morally casual: it is only potentially legitimate through strict conditions centered on legitimate authority, just cause, right intention, necessity, proportionality, and the aim of peace. At the same time, Catholic teaching on the moral limits of technology insists that technical capability cannot replace ethical discernment: technology must be ordered to the person and guided by respect for the created order, and in life-and-death contexts it must preserve proper human control, so that “no machine should ever choose to take the life of a human being.”