The Vatican announced on Monday that Pope Leo XIV will release his first papal encyclical on May 25, a highly anticipated document expected to confront the rapid rise of artificial intelligence, global conflicts, and contemporary challenges to workers’ rights.
Titled “Magnifica Humanitas” (Magnificent Humanity), the text represents one of the highest forms of teaching a pontiff can deliver to the global Catholic Church’s 1.4 billion members. According to a Vatican statement, Pope Leo formally signed the document on Friday, May 15.
Breaking sharply with papal tradition, the American-born pontiff will personally participate in the official Vatican presentation on the day of its publication. He will be joined at the event by Christopher Olah, the co-founder of the artificial intelligence firm Anthropic.
According to the Vatican’s Monday briefing, the core theme of the encyclical centers on “the protection of the human person in the age of artificial intelligence.” Veteran analysts note that an inaugural encyclical serves as a vital blueprint for a new papacy.
”A pope’s first encyclical typically outlines his priorities, focusing on what he sees as serious social and moral issues for the modern world,” said John Thavis, a retired Vatican correspondent who covered three papacies.
Sources close to the matter indicate the document will also issue a staunch condemnation of ongoing global warfare. Leo XIV, who marked his first anniversary in the papacy on May 8, has consistently sounded the alarm regarding the intersection of new technologies and modern combat.
In a speech delivered last week at Europe’s largest university, the Pope directly condemned the deployment of AI in military theaters, pointing to active conflicts across the globe.
”…the inhumane evolution of the relationship between war and new technologies in a spiral of annihilation,” Leo XIV warned, citing the devastating impacts seen in Ukraine, Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran.
The text is also poised to offer the Church’s most comprehensive theological guidance on labor in decades. The timing of the signing carries deep historical symmetry; May 15 marked the 135th anniversary of Pope Leo XIII’s landmark 19th-century encyclical Rerum Novarum, which famously championed fair wages and humane conditions for industrial laborers.
The upcoming release follows weeks of escalating rhetoric from the Pope against the decisions of world leaders. His outspoken geopolitical stances have already generated friction abroad, drawing sharp criticism from U.S. President Donald Trump after the pontiff publicly condemned the war in Iran.