Pope Leo XIV calls for strict AI limits, apologises for Church's historical role in slavery

Pope Leo XIV has issued a strong warning on the future of technology in his first major papal letter, calling for artificial intelligence to be effectively disarmed.

The pontiff used the encyclical, titled Magnifica Humanitas, or Magnificent Humanity, to argue that AI must be restrained so it serves the common good rather than becoming a tool of control. An encyclical is a high-level letter sent by the Pope to Catholic bishops worldwide to clarify church teaching.

By making AI ethics a central theme of his first major statement, Pope Leo XIV signaled that establishing moral boundaries around emerging technologies is one of the most urgent challenges facing humanity.

"Artificial intelligence needs to be disarmed," the Pope said. "The word is strong, I know, but deliberately chosen because this moment needs words capable of attracting attention, awakening consciousness and showing future paths for humanity."

He compared the challenge to the church's advocacy for nuclear disarmament, noting that every technical power affects human lives and requires public control.

Pope Leo XIV also addressed the wider implications of machines designed to mimic human behaviour, drawing a clear distinction between humans and computers. He stressed that imitation does not equal humanity, noting that machines lack a soul, empathy, and moral conscience.

"So-called artificial intelligences do not undergo experiences, do not possess a body, do not feel joy or pain, do not mature through relationships and do not know from within what love, work, friendship or responsibility mean," he added.

He further warned that AI must not be allowed to dominate or endanger human life, explaining that disarming technology means setting strict ethical limits to ensure human oversight remains central.

"In a similar sense, artificial intelligence now demands to be disarmed, freed from logics that turn it into an instrument of domination, exclusion and death," the Pope said. "To disarm does not mean rejecting technology, but preventing it from dominating humanity."

While the letter focused largely on artificial intelligence, the Pope also issued an apology for the Catholic Church’s historical links to slavery, acknowledging past failures to oppose it.

"In the early modern period, the Apostolic See of Rome, responding to requests from sovereigns, intervened several times in order to regulate and legitimize forms of subjugation, and, in certain cases, the enslavement of 'infidels'," he wrote.

The pontiff concluded that the delay by both society and the church to denounce slavery constitutes a wound in Christian memory.

For this delay, he said, he sincerely asks for pardon.