Pope Leo’s AI Encyclical: Why the Church Thinks the Real Crisis Is Human, Not Technological
Bo Bonner, Brett Robinson, Luigi Russi, and Michael Murphy on artificial intelligence, human dignity, social media, transhumanism, Catholic social teaching, and Pope Leo’s vision for the digital age
As artificial intelligence rapidly transforms education, work, communication, and culture, Pope Leo has chosen the subject of AI for his first encyclical—a move that has surprised many observers expecting the Church to focus on more traditionally religious themes.
But according to four Catholic scholars who have spent years studying technology, media, and human formation, the Pope’s concern is not primarily about machines. It is about what happens to human beings when technological systems begin to reshape how we think, relate, work, pray and understand ourselves.
Bo Bonner, Brett Robinson, Luigi Russi, and Michael Murphy argue that Pope Leo’s message is ultimately about defending the human person in an age increasingly defined by algorithms, automation, and artificial intelligence.
Far from being anti-technology, they contend that the Church is calling for a deeper examination of how AI influences human freedom, attention, relationships, labor, and spiritual life—and whether society is allowing technological progress to eclipse the deeper questions of meaning, vocation, and human flourishing.
In this conversation, we discuss:
Why Pope Leo believes AI is fundamentally an anthropological and spiritual challenge rather than merely a technological one
How artificial intelligence and social media can fragment attention, identity, and community
The rise of transhumanist ideas and competing visions of human destiny
Why many young people are becoming skeptical of technological utopianism
How Catholic social teaching can help address concerns about labor, automation, surveillance, and human dignity
The role of liturgy, sacramental imagination, and Catholic tradition in responding to the challenges of the AI age
Their new book, Catholic Cosmotechnics for the AI Age, and why they believe the Church has unique resources for understanding the technological moment
This is a conversation about artificial intelligence, Catholicism, technology, social media, work, education, transhumanism, media ecology, human dignity, and what it means to remain fully human in an increasingly digital world.