Anthropic Co-Founder Joins Pope—Church’s Moral Voice at Risk?

A religious leader in white robes gestures during a public address

Pope Leo XIV made history by releasing the Catholic Church’s first-ever papal encyclical on artificial intelligence — and he chose an AI company co-founder to stand beside him at the unveiling, raising serious questions about who is really shaping the Church’s moral voice on Big Tech.

Story Highlights

Pope Leo XIV released Magnifica Humanitas (“Magnificent Humanity”), the first papal encyclical dedicated to artificial intelligence and human dignity.
In an unprecedented move, the Pope personally presented the document alongside Christopher Olah, co-founder of Anthropic, the AI company behind the Claude large language model.
The encyclical was signed on May 15, the 135th anniversary of Rerum Novarum, deliberately linking it to Catholic social teaching’s tradition of responding to major technological and economic upheaval.
The Vatican’s involvement with AI ethics spans over a decade, including the 2020 Rome Call for AI Ethics, but this encyclical marks the most authoritative Church statement on the subject to date.

A Historic Document With Deep Roots

Pope Leo XIV released Magnifica Humanitas — Latin for “Magnificent Humanity” — positioning it as the Catholic Church’s definitive moral response to artificial intelligence. The encyclical centers on “the protection of the human person in the age of artificial intelligence,” according to Vatican-linked reporting. The Pope signed the document on May 15, the 135th anniversary of Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum, the landmark 1891 encyclical on labor and capitalism, signaling that the Church views AI as an equally transformative civilizational challenge. ^[1]

The Vatican’s engagement with AI ethics is not new. The Holy See produced the Rome Call for AI Ethics in 2020 and has hosted multiple conferences and dialogues on technology and human dignity over the past decade. ^[3] However, a full papal encyclical carries far greater doctrinal weight than prior statements, representing the Pope’s most authoritative teaching instrument and placing AI squarely within the Church’s core moral framework for the first time in history.

Anthropic at the Vatican — Dialogue or Influence?

The most striking element of the launch was the presence of Christopher Olah, co-founder of Anthropic, standing alongside Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican press conference. America Magazine described this as “a first for any papal social document,” noting that no previous pope had personally attended the press conference for a social encyclical. ^[1] Olah has been publicly quoted framing AI’s implications as questions “bigger than the AI community,” a sentiment that dovetails with the encyclical’s emphasis on spiritual and social impact. ^[1]

Anthropic, the San Francisco-based firm behind the Claude artificial intelligence model, has cultivated ties with the Vatican through several months of dialogues on technology and ethics. ^[8] The company is publicly known for advocating ethical guardrails on AI use and reportedly declined a United States Department of Defense contract over autonomous weapons concerns. ^[5] Still, the optics of a billion-dollar AI corporation sharing the Vatican stage with the Pope invite legitimate scrutiny about whether elite tech interests are shaping — or at minimum, softening — the Church’s moral critique of the very industry those firms represent.

What the Encyclical Is Expected to Address

Reporting ahead of the release indicated the document would examine the opportunities and risks AI presents to human life, including moral, spiritual, and social dimensions of how the technology is reshaping society. ^[2] One line from the encyclical already circulating on social media warns that chatbots exploit “our need for human relationships,” suggesting the document does not shy away from pointed criticism of how AI products are designed and deployed. The panel assembled for the launch included three cardinals — Víctor Manuel Fernández, Michael Czerny, and Pietro Parolin — alongside two female theologians, signaling broad institutional backing. ^[6]

Anthropic is going to the Vatican."Pope Leo XIV will today launch a papal encyclical on Artificial Intelligence alongside the co-founder of the leading AI company Anthropic."

— Angela (@Angela_Inca) May 25, 2026

For conservative Catholics and Americans concerned about AI’s unchecked expansion into daily life, education, and governance, the encyclical’s focus on human dignity and the primacy of what it means to live a fully human life aligns with longstanding concerns about technology eroding personal autonomy, family relationships, and authentic community. ^[3] Whether the Vatican’s moral framework will carry practical weight against the commercial and political forces driving AI deployment — including tensions with the Trump administration over military AI and autonomous weapons policy — remains the central open question as the full text enters public debate. ^[6]