 Pope Leo Sees Red in AI Revolution By Cliff Kincaid Having posed as an arms control expert, Pope Leo XIV will now pontificate on the subject of artificial intelligence (AI) by releasing his first encyclical, Magnifica humanitas (Magnificent Humanity), on May 25, and attempting to establish the Vatican as the global arbiter of what should be permitted. The topic, about which Leo has no expertise, is advertised as “preserving the human person in the age of artificial intelligence.” At the recent meeting of the so-called World Meeting of Popular Movements (WMPM), Pope Leo lamented the “systemic arbitrariousness” that sees artificial intelligence “in our pockets while millions of people languish in deprivation of their basic human needs.” These comments are viewed by left-wingers as designed to affect “global income distribution” and usher in a New World Order of socialism by using AI through the United Nations. Michael Hichborn, president of the Lepanto Institute and a traditional Catholic, reveals in a new report that the WMPM is a communist front that employs Christian language to disguise its agenda. His 144-page report describes the participants in the WMPM as “committed Marxists who praise Karl Marx, read his Communist Manifesto aloud, praise Communist revolutionists like Lenin and Castro, and who call for revolution, have ties to guerrilla violence, and who declare their desire to seek a Socialist society.” He adds, “In addition to this, many of the participants are also vocally pro-abortion and promote homosexual and transgender ideologies.” Yet Pope Leo XIV addressed the participants by declaring, “I am here. I am with you.” Leo Embraces Anti-American AI Company At the upcoming Vatican event on May 25, Leo will host various “experts,” including a co-founder of Anthropic, a company backlisted by the Pentagon for inserting limitations on artificial intelligence into its Claude AI models that threaten U.S. national security. In response to being designated a supply chain risk, a label reserved for foreign adversaries, Anthropic says it “has supported American warfighters since June 2024 and has every intention of continuing to do so.” But its blacklisting is based on restrictions on warfighting inserted into its products. The papal document is already completed and the Vatican says the Pope’s signature was placed on it on May 15th, the 135th anniversary of the publication of Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum novarum, in which the church proclaimed itself to be competent on economic matters. The AP media organization proclaimed, “Leo, who has made AI a priority of his young pontificate, is greatly concerned about AI in warfare and has called for monitoring of how the technology is used.” Clearly, Leo wants to be the AI “expert” on the top of the heap. Since the church will now claim to be an authority on artificial intelligence, it might be relevant to examine what various AI tools say about this pope’s policies and how the Vatican conducts its own financial affairs. An apologist for the new left-wing pope wrote to me claiming that President Trump was wrong when he said Leo wants Iran to have a nuclear weapon and cited an AI story from Grok claiming that Leo “has not said anything supporting Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear weapon.” On the other hand, neither has he specifically condemned the Iranian regime for pursuing nuclear weapons. Silence on Iran Here’s what Google’s AI said, “Pope Leo XIV has not specifically condemned Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons. Instead, he and the Holy See maintain a long-standing, consistent policy of condemning the development, possession, and proliferation of all nuclear weapons universally.” Therefore, I asked, “Has Pope Leo XIV addressed the U.S. use of nuclear weapons to end World War II?” The answer is that he did, marking the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, by issuing “a solemn, official message via the Vatican” that avoided “aggressive political finger-pointing” but offered “his respect and affection to the hibakusha (the survivors of the U.S. bombings), stating that their enduring stories of loss and suffering serve as a vital, urgent summons for the modern world to dismantle its nuclear capabilities.” That sounds somewhat non-controversial, except the United States was singled out, though not by name, and the call for the world to “dismantle” nuclear capabilities is vague and unenforceable, except possibly through a world government favored by the Vatican. More on this later. Silence on Pearl Harbor What is more, AI told me that “Pope Leo XIV has not issued an official, standalone condemnation specifically addressing the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor since ascending to the papacy.” The figures show that 2,403 Americans were killed and 1,178 others were wounded during the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. If the U.S. had avoided the use of nuclear weapons, AI says that “An Allied invasion of Japan was estimated to result in hundreds of thousands to millions of deaths on both sides. The experience at battles like Okinawa, where over 100,000 lives were lost, suggested the Japanese would fight to the last person.” This is true. President Truman ordered the bombing, saying an invasion of Japan would look like "Okinawa from one end of Japan to the other," and that the price of invasion would be millions of American dead and wounded. Having moved on to the topic of AI, political observers now are wondering if Leo will get this wrong, too, as he assembles a group of liberals and left-wingers to push the Vatican perspective on the world that adopts an anti-American tone. The United Nations Crowd One of the scheduled speakers at the Pope’s upcoming AI symposium is Professor Leocadie Lushombo, a professor of political theology and Catholic social thought at the Jesuit School of Theology at Santa Clara University in California who has been involved in the Catholic Peacebuilding Network and was educated in the field of “Sustainable Development,” a popular theme at United Nations conferences. She was recently appointed by pope Leo XIV as member of the Dicastery of Integral Human Development at the Vatican. Another speaker of significance is Christopher Olah, co-founder of Anthropic (USA), an AI technology firm blacklisted by the Trump Administration and deemed a supply-chain risk to national security if used in U.S. weapons systems. Conservatives are apprehensive about funding for the large data centers behind AI but nevertheless believe AI can not only improve our weapons systems and also be deployed to facilitate an audit of the financial statements of the Department of Defense and coordinate the functions of incompetent intelligence agencies. The Pentagon has reportedly used AI to identify targets in Iran, while Palantir Technologies Inc. CEO Alex Karp said that artificial intelligence is giving the U.S. and its allies a strategic edge in that and future conflicts. Leo Leads the Peacenik Faction Following Pope Leo’s lead, peaceniks in Congress want to pass legislation to prohibit the use of federal funds for “an autonomous weapons system that is not subject to meaningful human control to launch a nuclear weapon or to select or engage targets for the purposes of launching a nuclear weapon.” Critics note this amounts to unilateral disarmament, since the United States will be handicapped while enemies like Russia or China will gain an advantage if AI is integrated into their militaries, this creating a strategic vulnerability for America. Some fear that the involvement of Pope Leo in this discussion, even though he has no background in the topic, will lead to global demands for U.N. control of AI technology. In this context, the U.N. has launched the Global Dialogue on AI Governance to be held July 6 and July 7 in Geneva. The World Government Agenda Former high-ranking communist Bella Dodd, who wrote a book, School of Darkness, testified before congressional committees about communism’s influence in American society and described communist infiltration of the Roman Catholic Church as designed to usher in a world government. In the Vatican encyclical Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth), a previous pope declared that a “World Political Authority” was needed. It stated that “…such an authority would need to be universally recognized and to be vested with the effective power to ensure security for all, regard for justice, and respect for rights.” Furthermore, the document stated that “it would have to have the authority to ensure compliance with its decisions from all parties, and also with the coordinated measures adopted in various international forums.” Expect to hear more calls for world government from the Vatican as the debate over AI heats up. It will be tinged with the anti-Americanism of the current pope. Rather than trying to tell the rest of the world how to use AI, perhaps the pope ought to use the technology to address the Holy See's central administrative budget, which “carries significant structural debt and a massive pension shortfall,” according to AI. Google’s Gemini AI also reveals, “The Vatican's pension fund faces a massive unfunded liability estimated at well over $1 billion, posing a severe prospective imbalance that threatens long-term payouts for current and former employees.” Can AI Help? It told me, in part, that it could improve “administrative efficiency” and help “streamline the Roman Curia's bloated global bureaucracy.” On a final note, I asked AI: Should Pope Leo use artificial intelligence on spiritual matters? The answer: “The question of whether and how artificial intelligence should be used in spiritual matters is one that Pope Leo XIV has addressed directly, establishing a very clear boundary: AI can be a tool to support the church's mission, but it cannot replicate or replace authentic human faith.” On that we can agree. First, though, get your own house in order, Pope Leo.
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