Vatican sets up commission on artificial intelligence

VATICAN CITY — Pope Leo XIV has approved the creation of a new Vatican commission on artificial intelligence to coordinate the Holy See’s response to the rapidly expanding technology and its implications for human dignity, integral development, and the Church’s own internal use of AI.

The move comes as the Vatican is preparing for the release of Leo’s first encyclical, which is expected to deal extensively with artificial intelligence and its ethical, social, and economic consequences. Reports have indicated that the document will likely frame AI as one of the defining moral questions of the present age, drawing a parallel with the social upheavals of the Industrial Revolution addressed by Pope Leo XIII in Rerum Novarum.

The Holy See Press Office announced the decision May 16. It followed a May 3 audience with Cardinal Michael Czerny, prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development.

The Vatican said the pope made the decision in light of the development of artificial intelligence in recent decades, its rapid acceleration in general use, its potential effects on the human person and humanity as a whole, and the Church’s concern for the dignity of every human being, particularly in relation to integral human development.

The new commission will include representatives from the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Dicastery for Culture and Education, the Dicastery for Communication, the Pontifical Academy for Life, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, and the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences.

Any changes to the commission’s composition will be submitted to the approval of the Holy Father.

The head of each participating institution will delegate a representative to the commission. Its coordination will be entrusted for one year, renewable, to the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development. After that, the Roman Pontiff will entrust coordination to one of the participating institutions, again for a period of one year.

The coordinating institution will be responsible for facilitating collaboration and the exchange of information among the group’s members regarding activities and projects related to artificial intelligence, including policies governing its use within the Holy See. The commission is also tasked with promoting dialogue, communion, and participation.

Pope Leo XIV has stressed the global challenges posed by artificial intelligence since the beginning of his pontificate.

Explaining his choice of papal name in an address to the College of Cardinals on May 10, 2025, Leo said: “In our own day, the Church offers to everyone the treasury of her social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defense of human dignity, justice and labor.”

This story was first published by ACI Stampa, the Italian-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.