'AI has no soul': Pope Leo expected to address AI's ethical challenges; USA TODAY, May 13, 2026

Marc Ramirez, USA TODAY ; 'AI has no soul': Pope Leo expected to address AI's ethical challenges

"Is thinking basically computing? Are humans just biological versions of machines – only less efficient than their AI counterparts?

The concept that people may develop such a mindset is a major concern for Catholic observers given the breakneck pace at which AI is developing.

“As soon as you start thinking of yourself as a machine, only not as good, then you’re just a commodity and have no other reason to live,” said John Cavadini, director of the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana. “It’s a pathway to desolation.”

That’s why Cavadini and others are looking forward to the imminent release of Pope Leo XIV’s first major encyclical, expected to address the growing ethical and moral challenges of artificial intelligence.

The treatise will be Leo’s most authoritative document to date, as topical as it is symbolic: Though the Vatican has set no specific date, a May 15 release would come 135 years to the day that Pope Leo XIII, with whom the current pontiff shares his name, issued what is considered the first social encyclical of modern times, Rerum Novarum...

As the term implies, an encyclical is a "circular letter" designed to be shared among a community...

The overarching concern, Daly said, is whether AI will be leveraged to promote human flourishing or whether efficiency and productivity will become the focus, leaving patients behind...

Another overlooked but important risk of AI, Daly said, is that technological advances tend to favor those already represented in such settings – in other words, those adept with new technology and who have electronic health records...

Hayes-Mota hopes the papal document can place the church, especially in the U.S., at the forefront of an emerging and urgent public conversation. The pope, he said, can play a leading role in fostering that conversation and ensuring it’s “anchored in moral values” and the fundamental questions AI is raising."

Vatican conference ponders who really holds the power of AI; Religion News Service, June 27, 2024

Claire Giangravé, Religion News Service; Vatican conference ponders who really holds the power of AI

"The vice director general of Italy’s Agency for National Cybersecurity, Nunzia Ciardi, also warned at the conference of the influence held by leading AI developers.

“Artificial intelligence is made up of massive economic investments that only large superpowers can afford and through which they ensure a very important geopolitical dominance and access to the large amount of data that AI must process to produce outputs,” Ciardi said.

Participants agreed that international organizations must enforce stronger regulations for the use and advancement of AI technologies.

“You could say that we are colonized by AI, which is managed by select companies that brutally rack through our data,” she added.

“We need guardrails, because what is coming is a radical transformation that will change real and digital relations and require not only reflection but also regulation,” Benanti said.

The “Rome Call for AI Ethics,” a document signed by IBM, Microsoft, Cisco and U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization representatives, was promoted by the Vatican’s Academy for Life and lays out guidelines for promoting ethics, transparency and inclusivity in AI.

Other religious communities have also joined the “Rome Call,” including the Anglican Church and Jewish and Muslim representatives. On July 9, representatives from Eastern religions will gather for a Vatican-sponsored event to sign the “Rome Call” in Hiroshima, Japan. The location was decided to emphasize the dangerous consequences of technology when unchecked."