Deus in Machina: Pope Leo XIV against Artificial Intelligence

On Monday, May 25, 2026, Pope Leo XIV issued the papal encyclical Magnifica Humanitas,[i] serving as an official ecclesiastical warning against the threat of uncontrolled Artificial Intelligence. This is not the first time a Pope has spoken out; his predecessor, Pope Francis, had warned of "digital barbarism" at a 2019 Vatican conference. I use this same term in my book, Artificial Intelligence and Barbarism[ii], to describe the prospect of an authoritarian technocracy based on opaque algorithmic governance. This is not merely a theoretical possibility, but the ideological vision of the most powerful actors of technocratic capital, bordering on techno-fascism. However, Leo XIV moved with greater weight and formality than Francis. In this text of theological authority, the Pope presents arguments aligned with techno-skepticism—a "theological techno-skepticism from the top" as opposed to the traditional religious technophobia prevalent among the faithful. As an encyclical, it expresses the dogmatic truth of the Catholic Church, carrying supreme theological weight for Christendom. This paper is an attempt to interpret the Pope’s intervention in the context of the Christian theology the he represents as opposed to the digital instrumental rationality of AI.