Pope Leo and the machine

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NICK EICHER, HOST: Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. 

I’m Nick Eicher.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast.

Pope Leo XIV this week issued the first encyclical of his papacy. For non-Catholics, an encyclical is essentially a formal teaching letter from the pope—an attempt to apply Christian moral reasoning to major issues facing the church and the wider culture.

EICHER: This particular encyclical tackles a subject shaping nearly every part of modern life: artificial intelligence. 

Here is WORLD commentator Daniel Suhr.

DANIEL SUHR: This week, the pope used his first encyclical to address one of the defining moral questions of our age: artificial intelligence.

POPE LEO XIV: Artificial intelligence can be a construction site of history … Let each builder choose with care how to build, warned Saint Paul. He does not fear the worksite. Rather, he warns against building without solid foundations.

That is the challenge before us: not whether artificial intelligence will become more deeply woven into our lives, communities, and economies. No, that ship has sailed.

The question now is whether we build AI on a solid foundation of law and ethics—so it serves humanity rather than replacing or diminishing it.

The pope frames the question through two Old Testament stories: 

First, the Tower of Babel in Genesis—humanity pushing ahead in pride and building without a proper foundation.

Then Nehemiah, who led the rebuilding of Jerusalem’s walls. The pope notes that everyone had a role: political leaders, religious leaders, laborers, soldiers, ordinary citizens.

Pope Leo’s vision for the age of AI seems to follow that pattern: not slowing innovation out of fear, but ensuring that development does not happen inside a Silicon Valley silo separated from the larger society.

Practically, that could mean allowing AI to flourish while still setting boundaries—especially for children or for AI’s use in darker corners of the internet, like pornography or gambling.

Leo’s sharpest challenge comes over military applications of AI.

POPE LEO: Artificial intelligence now demands to be disarmed, freed from logics that turn it into an instrument of domination, exclusion, and death.

Leo compares AI to the splitting of the atom: nuclear power brought tremendous benefits, but nuclear weapons also brought enormous danger.

I appreciate the analogy, though I'm not convinced the comparison fully fits. 

AI’s military uses, at least today, look less like autonomous science-fiction machines and more like faster research, improved intelligence gathering, and better decision-making.

I find myself sympathetic then, to the balance recently described by Vice President J.D. Vance:

VANCE: We want to be pro-innovation. We recognize artificial intelligence could be great ... It does also have some downsides, and we’re trying to balance that safety against innovation.

That sounds close to the balance Pope Leo is seeking as well: welcoming AI’s potential to advance knowledge, cure disease, expand prosperity, and unlock learning—while remaining mindful of effects on the vulnerable, the environment, and the common good.

For WORLD, I’m Daniel Suhr.

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