Pope Leo renews calls for humanitarian help for people of Gaza, discusses AI and warfare
Pope Leo XIV urged the international community to provide humanitarian aid to Gaza during a press briefing outside Castel Gandolfo on May 26, 2026. He highlighted the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza, calling for urgent assistance for civilians. The pope also addressed the implications of artificial intelligence in warfare, linking the topic to his newly released encyclical "Magnifica Humanitas." His remarks echoed themes from the encyclical, emphasizing the moral responsibilities of technology and war.
4 months ago
Pope Leo XIV reiterated his appeal for humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza and warned that the growing use of artificial intelligence in warfare threatens the value of human life. In remarks to journalists outside his Castel Gandolfo residence, he linked the urgent need for aid with his newly released encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, which calls for strict ethical limits on AI‑driven weaponry.
The pope urged the international community to “renew our appeal for the respect of the human rights” of every person in Gaza, stressing that civilians remain without sufficient shelter, food, and medical care 1. He called on all authorities to help deliver aid and begin reconstruction, describing the situation as “truly suffering.”
According to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, nearly the entire 2.1 million‑person population of Gaza has been displaced and lacks basic necessities 1. The pope noted that despite global attention, “the people of Gaza are still not receiving humanitarian aid.”
When asked about the Global Sumud Flotilla—an international maritime effort to break Israel’s 150‑mile naval blockade—Leo referenced reports that activists were handcuffed and blindfolded after Israeli forces intercepted their vessels on May 19 1. He warned that such actions risk “fueling further hatred” and emphasized that violence “does not help” from any side.
Leo stressed the importance of returning to negotiations and resolving disputes through dialogue while respecting human rights on all sides 1. He cautioned that continued aggression only deepens animosity.
Echoing themes from Magnifica Humanitas, the pope warned that “war is being waged with AI, without thinking about human lives” and urged the imposition of “the most rigorous ethical constraints” on AI‑based weaponry 1. He described the need for a “disarmed artificial intelligence.”
The pope explained that the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development is already in dialogue with AI firm Anthropic, highlighting a joint effort to promote ethical AI development 1. He thanked Anthropic co‑founder Christopher Olah for his participation and reiterated the Vatican’s commitment to “continue the dialogue and truly seek a disarmed artificial intelligence.”
Leo’s statements connect the humanitarian emergency in Gaza with the moral challenges posed by AI in conflict, urging both immediate aid and long‑term ethical governance of emerging technologies.
Assess the Church’s moral guidance on AI warfare
The Church’s moral guidance on AI warfare focuses on one overriding conviction: human beings must never abdicate moral responsibility for decisions that can mean taking life. Across recent magisterial teaching, the emphasis falls on human dignity, the sanctity of life, last-resort use of force, accountability, and the ethical impossibility of delegating lethal, irreversible choices to machines.
A central theme in the Church’s teaching is that decisions about life and death must remain under “proper human control”. Pope Francis insists that “human dignity itself depends on it” and that the tragedy of armed conflict makes it urgent to reconsider “lethal autonomous weapons” and ultimately ban their use.
This is not merely a call for better oversight. It is a direct moral claim about the nature of lethal autonomy: “No machine should ever choose to take the life of a human being.”
Pope Leo XIV reinforces the same line at a deeper anthropological and ethical level: it is “not permissible to entrust lethal or otherwise irreversible decisions to artificial systems,” because moral judgment involves conscience, personal responsibility, and recognizing the other as a person, not calculation.
“Yet moral judgment cannot be reduced to calculation… Therefore, it is not permissible to entrust lethal or otherwise irreversible decisions to artificial systems.”
The Church does not treat AI as a neutral upgrade of tools. It explicitly warns that AI does not remove the intrinsic inhumanity of conflict; it can instead make violence more quick, more impersonal, and easier to initiate—reducing persons to data.
The moral reasoning here is consistent: even if AI could increase efficiency, moral permissibility cannot be derived from effectiveness. Pope Leo XIV adds that such systems may “accustom us to the idea that violence is inevitable and needs only to be optimized.”
Pope Leo XIV links AI-weapons development to a violation of the Church’s ordinary moral constraint on armed force: armed force should be used only as a last resort in cases of legitimate self-defense. He then concludes that AI in warfare must be under “the most rigorous ethical constraints” to safeguard human dignity and the sanctity of life and to avoid a race to develop such arms.
This is an important assessment point: the Church’s guidance is not limited to “avoid misuse.” It also addresses the structural incentives that drive escalation when autonomous or “more feasible” weapon systems appear.
The Church takes seriously the temptation to talk as if machines could perform moral work better than humans. Pope Leo XIV explicitly rejects this premise:
The ethical center of gravity is personhood. When human beings are reduced to “victims” or “data,” war stops confronting the other as a person—and that is morally decisive.
The Church also highlights how AI’s real behavior can escape full understanding. Pope Leo XIV notes that statements about AI can become outdated quickly and that even developers may have limited understanding of how current systems function, because they are often “cultivated” within a framework rather than built in every detail.
This practical epistemic limitation becomes moral: the Church insists on a twofold commitment—deeper scientific research and moral and spiritual discernment—precisely because technical progress alone cannot settle ethical legitimacy.
One of the most concrete governance themes is that when decisions become automated or opaque, the danger of abdicating responsibility rises. Pope Leo XIV therefore argues that the “chain of responsibility must be identifiable and verifiable,” so that those who design, train, authorize, and employ technology can be held accountable.
Even when the policy question is “How can we regulate AI?” the Church presses further: governance must protect the ethical structure of responsibility, not just the technical behavior of systems.
AI warfare is not only about autonomous targeting. Pope Leo XIV also warns about subtler harms where AI’s outputs are treated as neutral and objective while they reflect stereotypes or ideological bias.
Additionally, the Church frames certain non-lethal domains (e.g., decisions about credit, employment, reputation) as moral risks because AI systems lack “compassion, mercy, forgiveness, and… hope” and can therefore produce exclusion.
While that passage is not narrowly “warfare,” it matters for AI warfare ethics: the same anthropological problem scales up when AI recommends or enables violence. If the Church rejects delegating sensitive human judgments in civilian life because compassion and responsibility are absent, it is morally consistent to reject delegating lethal, irreversible decisions in war.
Pope Leo XIV treats the digital revolution as transforming conflict, including cyberattacks, information manipulation, influence campaigns, and automated strategic decisions. AI is described as an “accelerating factor” in these processes, with the concerning result that the line between protection and aggression can become blurred.
This is a key moral assessment: even where AI is not used for direct autonomous killing, it can lower the threshold to violence by making defense look like threat prediction and by shifting responsibility away from persons who must answer for their choices.
Pope Leo XIV develops a distinct moral category: “Disarming AI.” This means freeing AI from a mentality of “armed” competition—now not only military but also economic and cognitive.
Disarming does not mean refusing technology; it means preventing it from dominating humanity. It requires freeing technology from monopolistic control, opening it to debate, and making it human-friendly and accessible.
Based on the Church’s insistence on human control and accountability, Catholic moral reasoning points toward:
The Church’s emphasis on responsibility implies that technical actors cannot treat ethics as an external afterthought. Pope Francis argues that AI’s impact depends on developers’ aims and interests, and that positive outcomes for humanity require responsibility and respect for values such as inclusion, transparency, security, equity, privacy, and reliability.
Where AI is repurposed for violence, the moral evaluation cannot be detached from the purposes and foreseeable uses of the technology.
Pope Francis situates AI ethics inside peace and common-good concerns, calling for strengthening bodies that examine ethical issues and protect rights of those who employ AI or are affected by it.
Pope Leo XIV’s concern about avoiding an arms race and his explicit call to disarm AI’s competitive mentality point toward international dialogue as part of moral compliance, not merely public-relations compliance.
The Church itself acknowledges that AI is fast-changing and not fully understood even by developers, which creates an ongoing need for research plus moral discernment.
So the guidance is strong on principles (human control, responsibility, sanctity of life, last resort), while technical “how-to” details are largely left to civil authorities and ethical governance processes—within those moral constraints.
The Church’s moral guidance on AI warfare is best summarized as a demand for moral non-delegation: human beings must remain the moral subjects of war, and lethal or irreversible decisions may not be entrusted to artificial systems. At the same time, it warns that AI can intensify conflict dynamics (including hybrid cyber/information warfare) by making violence more feasible, impersonal, and easier to initiate—so ethical constraints must address both technologies and the competitive mentality that drives their development.