Editorial: Why the pope is taking on the powerful

The world lost one of its most courageous  leaders when Pope Francis died last year. Francis was willing to confront headfirst delicate issues like migration, climate change and war, often at the cost of scathing criticism.

Many believed his successor would be a conservative figure who retreats into a more ceremonial papacy.

Admittedly, Pope Leo did remain relatively in the shadows throughout 2025, but in recent months he has firmly established himself as one of the most consequential moral voices on the world stage.

The American pontiff has shown courage to confront world leaders whether speaking out on the war in Iran, immigration, or the excesses of modern capitalism. And in recent weeks, he launched Magnifica Humanitas, a 42,000-word reflection on artificial intelligence and human dignity. It is forward-looking and politically relevant, no mean feat for a church often portrayed as being behind the times.

And the symbolism during the launch was striking. The pope was joined on stage by Christopher Olah, a co-founder of Anthropic, the AI company that clashed with the Trump administration after it refused to bow down to allow its technology to be used for autonomous weapons and mass domestic surveillance.

The encyclical is particularly interesting because it does not reject technology or warn of apocalyptic scenarios often dominating public discussions about AI. It asks whether humanity is developing the wisdom and ethical safeguards necessary to match its technological capabilities.

Although Donald Trump is never mentioned by name, the contrast between Leo’s vision and that of the current US administration couldn’t be starker. While Washington has embraced a close alliance with major technology companies and accelerated the deployment of AI across government and military sectors, Leo repeatedly underlines the importance for technology to remain subordinate to human dignity.

Leo warns against what he describes as a “culture of power” driving the AI revolution. He criticises the concentration of technological control in the hands of a few powerful actors and calls for greater transparency, accountability and democratic oversight.

“Disarming AI means freeing it from the mentality of armed competition... It means freeing technology from monopolistic control and opening it to discussion,” he writes.

The pope recognises AI’s enormous potential to improve sectors like healthcare, education and scientific research, but he advocates slowing deployment where necessary to allow ethics, governance and public scrutiny to keep pace. In reality, he is simply calling for balance.

Earlier this year, there were huge tensions between the Pentagon and Anthropic over the company’s attempts to restrict the use of its technology in autonomous weapons systems and large-scale surveillance programmes.

The pope warns that AI risks making war easier to start and justify. By increasing the distance between attacker and victim, technology literally risks reducing human beings to mere data points on a screen.

The pope is equally concerned about AI’s impact on democracy, from deepfakes to disinformation campaigns reshaping political discourse around the world.

Leo has established a commission to take this work forward, but he is racing with unscrupulous billionaires behind most AI companies and their equally unscrupulous political masters.

There is a lesson here from Pope Francis. In 2015, his encyclical Laudato Si’ sounded the alarm on climate change and environmental degradation. Eight years later, Francis felt compelled to issue a follow-up document expressing disappointment at how little had been achieved despite the warnings.

Pope Leo has identified the risks of AI, articulated the principles and challenged the world’s political and technological elites to act responsibly.

The question is whether anyone is listening.