New Delhi, May 26 -- Pope Leo XIV has issued the Catholic Church's most consequential statement on artificial intelligence, comparing the unchecked ambitions of the global tech industry to the biblical builders of the Tower of Babel - and calling for a fundamental reckoning with human dignity in the age of AI.

The Vatican released Magnifica Humanitas - Latin for "Magnificent Humanity" - on 19 May 2026, making it the first papal encyclical devoted primarily to artificial intelligence. Pope Leo XIV, the first American pope, signed the 42,300-word document at St Peter's Basilica on 15 May 2026, exactly 135 years after his namesake Pope Leo XIII published Rerum Novarum, the foundational 1891 encyclical on labour rights during the Industrial ...