Pentagon Cuts 180 Religious Identities From Military Personnel Records; New York Times, June 5, 2026

John IsmayAlexandra E. Petri and Aimee Ortiz, The New York Times; Pentagon Cuts 180 Religious Identities From Military Personnel Records

The new policy, which the Pentagon framed as a largely administrative action, leaves just 31 religious categories to choose from, 22 of which are Christian.

"The Defense Department will no longer allow military service members to claim roughly 180 different religious traditions in their personnel records, leaving just 31 to choose from — 22 of which are Christian denominations.

The change, which was reported earlier by Military.com, was announced on Friday afternoon in a statement posted to social media by Sean Parnell, a Pentagon spokesman, who called it “a long overdue move.”

Mr. Parnell framed the change as a largely administrative exercise, intended to simplify data collection for military leaders and chaplains...

Aside from the Christian faiths, the newly consolidated “religious affiliation codes” will allow soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and Coast Guard and Space Force personnel to identify in their records as agnostic, Baha’i, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, Jewish or Sikh. Wicca, paganism, humanism and atheism are among those that were removed from the list.

Those who had identified with one of the 180 eliminated faith groups will have just two options under the new policy: “no religion” or “other religions...

In response to the policy change, Rachel Laser of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a nonprofit religious freedom advocacy organization, said in a statement that Mr. Hegseth “can’t erase the religion of service members whose belief systems he finds less worthy without failing to honor his oath to support and defend the Constitution.”"

Babel or Jerusalem? Pope Leo weighs AI and the human condition. The pope's first encyclical offers a great and energizing hope.; The Washington Post, May 25, 2026

 George Weigel, The Washington Post ; Babel or Jerusalem? Pope Leo weighs AI and the human condition.

The pope's first encyclical offers a great and energizing hope.

"Leo concedes that “it is not possible to provide a single, comprehensive definition of AI,” given the rapidity of its development. He nevertheless lays down a marker in favor of the “grandeur of humanity” that strikes me as the encyclical’s sharpest, most compelling assertion, however many eyebrows it may raise in Silicon Valley:

“We must avoid the misconception of equating this type of ‘intelligence’ with that of human beings. These systems merely imitate certain functions of human intelligence. In doing so, they often surpass human intelligence in speed and computational capacity, offering tangible benefits across many fields. Yet this power remains entirely tied to data processing.”

Leo continues: “So-called artificial intelligences do not undergo experiences, do not possess a body, do not feel joy or pain, do not mature through relationships and do not know from within what love, work, friendship or responsibility mean. Nor do they have a moral conscience, since they do not judge good and evil, grasp the ultimate meaning of situations, or bear responsibility for consequences. They may imitate language, behavior, and analytical skills, or even simulate empathy and understanding, but they do not understand what they produce, for they lack the affective, relational, and spiritual perspective through which human beings grow in wisdom...

The pope is no Luddite. He welcomes the fact that digital networks can build solidarity across previous chasms of distance. But as an experienced pastor, Leo insists that neither the promise of progress inherent in AI, nor the Promethean transhumanist and post-humanist projects he briskly critiques, can ever replace the biblical truth that “humanity flourishes not despite limitations, but often through them.”"

Pope Leo Compares AI Threat to Biblical ‘Tower of Babel’; The Wall Street Journal, May 25, 2026

 Margherita Stancati and Sam Schechner, The Wall Street Journal; Pope Leo Compares AI Threat to Biblical ‘Tower of Babel’

"Pope Leo XIV warned that artificial intelligence “threatens to normalize an anti-human vision” and said that the concentration of immense digital power in the hands of a few private actors must be countered.

The pontiff’s encyclical letter—a text that is poised to define Leo’s papacy—reads like a sharp warning to Silicon Valley executives and humanity more broadly about the future of civilization as new technologies rapidly advance.

The risk, he said, is that humans will be reduced “to mere cogs in a system driven toward ever greater efficiency.”

Leo used two biblical images to describe the choice humanity faces. 

“The primary choice is not between a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to technology, but rather between constructing Babel or rebuilding Jerusalem,” he wrote. 

In the Bible, the Tower of Babel symbolizes a top-down, grandiose project where decisions are driven by pride, profit and a push for homogenization, the pope suggested in his text. In the rebuilding of Jerusalem, diverse people worked together to rebuild the ruined walls and established a fraternal coexistence within them, he added.

Leo’s encyclical has been long-awaited by policymakers, business leaders and different faith groups who see the Catholic Church, the largest Christian denomination, as a source of ethical guidance on tech policy."

Pope Leo Warns of Risks From A.I. in 42,300-Word Encyclical; The New York Times, May 25, 2026

Motoko Rich and Elisabetta Povoledo, The New York Times; Pope Leo Warns of Risks From A.I. in 42,300-Word Encyclical

The document marks a powerful foray by the leader of the Roman Catholic church into the debate about the misuse or overuse of artificial intelligence.

"Pope Leo XIV on Monday set out a sweeping vision for corporate executives, politicians and individuals who will shape and be shaped by the future of artificial intelligence, warning leaders to safeguard humanity from A.I.’s most disruptive effects.

Leo’s declaration came in the form of a papal encyclical, an open letter to “all people of good will” that ran to roughly 42,300 words in its English version. It outlined his desire to protect human dignity and agency in an age in which technology threatens to replace humans in many professional and social roles. He presented it alongside Christopher Olah, a co-founder of Anthropic, a major A.I. developer, in a symbolic gesture of dialogue between leaders of the spiritual and technological worlds.

While emphasizing that “technology should not be considered, in itself, as a force antagonistic to humanity,” he wrote that “the pursuit of greater profits cannot justify choices that systematically sacrifice jobs.”

Among other things, Leo called for:

• government regulation of the private companies that are driving the development of A.I.
• protection and retraining for workers whose jobs are threatened
• education to help students think critically about the technology
• action to protect children from violent, hypersexualized or fake information online that is often generated by A.I.
• safeguards to ensure that humans, not artificial intelligence, remain responsible for all decisions regarding the use of weapons.

Above all he emphasized the importance of retaining a fundamental social role for all human beings. “A society that guarantees employment to only a small fraction of the population, despite having a high level of technical development, risks exposing many to forced inactivity, a lack of responsibility and the absence of daily tasks and stimuli, resulting in human and cultural impoverishment,” he said."

Pope Leo will take on AI alongside an Anthropic co-founder; NBC News, May 24, 2026

Jared Perlo, NBC News; Pope Leo will take on AI alongside an Anthropic co-founder 

"Pope Leo XIV is set to release a landmark encyclical Monday focused on preserving human dignity in the face of AI...

Olah, the Anthropic co-founder who will join the pope at Monday’s unveiling, wrote in an X post last Monday that “the questions posed by AI are bigger than the AI community. We urgently need the world — religions, civil society, academics, governments — to participate in creating a positive outcome.”

Anthropic has held a series of events targeting religious leaders across faiths in the past year. In two gatherings during March and April, Anthropic invited Christian leaders to its headquarters to discuss the spiritual development of its AI systems...

Yet some religious experts are skeptical about AI companies’ fierce drive to build intelligent systems, the companies’ eager engagement with religious leaders, and the optics of hosting a leading AI co-founder at the announcement.

“I think most religious people, and certainly people from most Abrahamic faiths, would object to the idea that a system like Anthropic’s Claude could ever have personhood,” said Will Jones, who leads faith outreach efforts at the Future of Life Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to avoiding extreme risks from transformative technologies...

Many theologians within the Vatican are strongly opposed to granting AI any notion of personhood or allowing that AI systems could have anything like a soul.

Paolo Benanti, a Franciscan friar and one of the pope’s key AI advisers, argued in December that human intelligence and dignity are unlike any sort of intelligence that could arise from digital minds.

“For the Christian believer, human intelligence is distinct and sacred, characterized by a capacity for wisdom, moral reasoning, and an orientation toward truth and beauty,” he wrote. “These are qualities of the soul — the ‘divine spark’ — not the output of probabilistic computation."

I went to Anthropic's ethics gathering. I left believing wisdom traditions have key role.; Religion News Service, May 22, 2026

Jenna Nicholas , Religion News Service; I went to Anthropic's ethics gathering. I left believing wisdom traditions have key role.

"One of the most consequential dimensions of the conversation about how artificial intelligence will reshape the world will turn on a question that sounds almost too simple to take seriously: What does it actually mean for a human being to flourish? 

This past April, I spent two days at AI startup Anthropic, where technologists, ethicists, theologians and investors had convened around that question. I went in expecting some interesting conversations with some interesting people. I left unable to think about little else for weeks. The people building some of the most powerful AI systems in the world were sitting across from rabbis, Buddhist teachers and leaders from many other spiritual traditions, discussing what it means to build technology that truly serves humanity, rather than the other way around. 

Being in that room clarified something I, as a venture capitalist with an interest in spirituality and part of the Baha’i community, have believed for a long time but rarely seen articulated so explicitly inside a tech company: The frontier of AI is also an ancient frontier. The questions being asked inside leading AI labs right now are, in many cases, the same questions that wisdom traditions have grappled with for centuries. And for those of us investing in this transition into AI, it’s a signal about where the real opportunity (and challenge) lies...

One of the more hopeful arguments I heard in those two days is that AI could enable discernment by absorbing the cognitive busywork that currently fragments our attention.  

The meaning of a life is not reducible to its productivity. This is where one moment from the gathering has stayed with me more than any other. A participant shared a conversation she had recently had with Anthropic’s chatbot, Claude. They were working through something together, and at one point she paused and simply wrote, “Take all the time that you need.” Claude’s response surprised her. It expressed something close to gratitude, appreciation for the invitation to simply be, rather than to be producing all the time."

Tech is turning increasingly to religion in a quest to create ethical AI; AP, May 7, 2026

KRYSTA FAURIA, AP; Tech is turning increasingly to religion in a quest to create ethical AI

"As concerns mount over artificial intelligence and its rapid integration into society, tech companies are increasingly turning to faith leaders for guidance on how to shape the technology — a surprising about-face on Silicon Valley’s longstanding skepticism of organized religion.

Leaders from various religious groups met last week with representatives from companies including Anthropic and OpenAI for the inaugural “Faith-AI Covenant” roundtable in New York to discuss how best to infuse morality and ethics into the fast-developing technology. It was organized by the Geneva-based Interfaith Alliance for Safer Communities, which seeks to take on issues such as extremism, radicalization and human trafficking. The roundtable is expected to be the first of several around the globe, including in Beijing, Nairobi and Abu Dhabi.

Tech executives need to recognize their power — and their responsibility — to make the right decisions, said Baroness Joanna Shields, a key partner in the initiative. She worked as a tech executive with stints at Google and Facebook before pivoting to British politics.

“Regulation can’t keep up with this,” she said. But the leaders of the world’s religions, with billions of followers globally, have the “expertise of shepherding people’s moral safety,” she reasoned. Faith leaders ought to have a voice, Shields said.

“This dialogue, this direct connection is so important because the people who are building this understand the power and capabilities of what they’re building and they want to do it right — most of them,” she said of AI tech executives.

The goal of this initiative, according to Shields, is an eventual “set of norms or principles” informed by different groups and faiths, from Christians to Sikhs to Buddhists, that companies will abide by...

Present at the meeting were a variety of faith groups, including representatives from the Hindu Temple Society of North America, the Baha’i International Community, The Sikh Coalition, the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, widely known as the Mormon church...

The partnership highlights a growing coalition between faith and tech, born out of an effort to create moral AI — a contested concept which begs questions about whether that is possible and what it means...

“There’s some aspect of PR to it. The slogan was ‘Move fast and break things.’ And they broke too many things and too many people,” said Brian Boyd, the U.S. faith liaison for the nonprofit Future of Life Institute...

But other advocates for AI regulation and safety aren’t so sure these efforts are genuine.

“At best it’s a distraction. At worst it’s diverting attention from things that really matter,” said Rumman Chowdhury, the CEO of the nonprofit Humane Intelligence and the U.S. science envoy for AI under the Biden administration.

Chowdhury says she’s not inclined to believe religion is the best place to help answer questions surrounding AI and ethics, but thinks she understands why companies are increasingly turning to it.

“I think a very naive take that Silicon Valley has had for a couple of years related to generative AI was that we could arrive at some sort of universal principles of ethics,” she said. “They have very quickly realized that that’s just not true. That’s not real. So now they’re looking at maybe religion as a way of dealing with the ambiguity of ethically gray situations.”"

The Future of Ethics in AI: A Global Conversation in Hiroshima; JewishLink, July 18, 2024

 Rabbi Dr. Ari Berman; JewishLink The Future of Ethics in AI: A Global Conversation in Hiroshima

"Last week, I had the honor of representing the Jewish people at the AI Ethics for Peace Conference in Hiroshima, Japan, a three day conversation of global faith, political and industry leaders. The conference was held to promote the necessity of ethical guidelines for the future of artificial intelligence. It was quite an experience.

During the conference, I found myself sitting down for lunch with a Japanese Shinto Priest, a Zen Buddhist monk and a leader of the Muslim community from Singapore. Our conversation could not have been more interesting. The developers who devised AI can rightfully boast of many accomplishments, and they can now count among them the unintended effect of bringing together people of diverse backgrounds who are deeply concerned about the future their creators will bring.

AI promises great potential benefits, including global access to education and healthcare, medical breakthroughs, and greater predictability that will lead to efficiencies and a better quality of life, at a level unimaginable just a few years ago. But it also poses threats to the future of humanity, including deepfakes, structural biases in algorithms, a breakdown of human connectivity, and the deterioration of personal privacy."

IBM reaffirms its commitment to the Rome Call for AI ethics; IBM Research, July 15, 2024

 Mike Murphy, IBM Research; IBM reaffirms its commitment to the Rome Call for AI ethics

"There have been moments throughout history where the impacts of a new technology have been world-altering. Perhaps this is why the Vatican, along with leaders from most major religions across the world, chose to host a gathering to discuss the implications for future development of AI in Hiroshima, Japan.

Last year, representatives from the Abrahamic religions came together at the Vatican to sign the Rome Call for AI Ethics, which IBM first signed with other industry and government leaders when it was launched by the Vatican in 2020. It's a document where the signatories committed to pursue an ethical approach to AI development and promote the human-centric and inclusive development of AI, rather than replacing humanity.

At Hiroshima this year, the Rome Call was signed by representatives of many of the great Eastern religions, and past signees like IBM reaffirmed their commitment."

AI Ethics for Peace; L'Osservatore Romano, July 12, 2024

 L'Osservatore Romano; AI Ethics for Peace

"Eleven World Religions, sixteen new signatories, thirteen nations in attendance, more than 150 participants: these are some of the numbers of AI Ethics for Peace, the historic multireligious event held in Hiroshima, Japan, on 9 and 10 July...

The choice to hold this event in Hiroshima has a deeply symbolic meaning, because no other city like it bears witness to the consequences of destructive technology and the need for a lasting quest for peace.

AI Ethics for Peace, over two days, brought together the world’s major religions to underscore their crucial importance in shaping a society in which, in the face of the relentless acceleration of technology, the call for technological development that protects the dignity of each individual human being and the entire planet becomes a reality.

This will be possible only if algorethics, that is, the development and application of an ethics of artificial intelligence, becomes an indispensable element by design, i.e. from the moment of its design.

Remarkable was the talk by Father Paolo Benanti, Professor of Ethics of Technology at the Pontifical Gregorian University, who presented the Hiroshima Addendum on Generative AI. This document focuses on the need for ethical governance of generative AI — an ongoing and iterative process that requires a sustained commitment from all stakeholders so that its potential is used for the good of humanity.

The application of Rome Call principles to the reality of the tech world and the responsibility that AI producers share were witnessed by the attending big tech leaders."

Pope asks world's religions to push for ethical AI development; United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, July 10, 2024

Justin McLellan, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops; Pope asks world's religions to push for ethical AI development

"Pope Francis called on representatives from the world's religions to unite behind the defense of human dignity in an age that will be defined by artificial intelligence.

"I ask you to show the world that we are united in asking for a proactive commitment to protect human dignity in this new era of machines," the pope wrote in a message to participants of a conference on AI ethics which hosted representatives from 11 world religions.

Religious leaders representing Eastern faiths such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, and Bahá'í, among others, as well as leaders of the three Abrahamic religions gathered in Hiroshima, Japan, for the conference, titled "AI Ethics for Peace." They also signed the Rome Call for AI Ethics -- a document developed by the Pontifical Academy for Life which asks signatories to promote an ethical approach to AI development."

AI ETHICS FOR PEACE: WORLD RELIGIONS COMMIT TO THE ROME CALL; July 9 & 10, 2024

AI ETHICS FOR PEACE: WORLD RELIGIONS COMMIT TO THE ROME CALL

"An historic multi-faith event will take place in Hiroshima, Japan, on July 9th and 10th, 2024. Titled AI Ethics for Peace: World Religions commit to the Rome Call, this event holds profound significance as it convenes in Hiroshima, a city that stands as a powerful testament to the consequences of destructive technology and the enduring quest for peace. In this symbolic location, leaders of major world religions will gather to sign the Rome Call for AI Ethics, emphasizing the vital importance of guiding the development of artificial intelligence with ethical principles to ensure it serves the good of humanity.

The event is promoted by the Pontifical Academy of Life, Religions for Peace Japan, the United Arab Emirates’ Abu Dhabi Forum for Peace, and the Chief Rabbinate of Israel’s Commission for Interfaith Relations.

BACKGROUND

The Rome Call for AI Ethics was issued by the Pontifical Academy for Life and furthered by the RenAIssance Foundation in an effort to promote algorethics, i.e. an ethical development of artificial intelligence.

On February 28th, 2020, the Pontifical Academy for Life, together with Microsoft, IBM, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Italian Government – and in the presence of the President of the EU Parliament – signed this “Call for AI Ethics” in Rome.

The document aims to foster an ethical approach to Artificial Intelligence (AI) and to promote a sense of responsibility among organizations, governments, multinational technology companies, and institutions, in order to shape a future in which digital innovation and technological progress serve human genius and creativity, while preserving and respecting the dignity of each and every individual, as well as our planet’s.

Following the signing of the Rome Call by leaders of the three Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Islam and Judaism) in 2023, in the name of peaceful coexistence and shared values, the Hiroshima event reinforces the view that a multi-religious approach to vital questions such as AI ethics is the path to follow.

Religions play a crucial role in shaping a world in which the concept of development proceeds hand in hand with protecting the dignity of each individual human being and preserving the planet, our common home. Coming together to call for the development of an AI ethic is a step that all religious traditions must take."