Pope Leo XIV released his first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, on May 25, 2026. Memorial Day morning. It’s a 245-paragraph letter on AI, human dignity, and the civilization of love, presented at the Vatican alongside Anthropic co-founder Christopher Olah.
Edmund Mitchell (The Faith & AI Project, Digital Continent) and Katie Prejean McGrady (SiriusXM The Catholic Channel, CNN Vatican analyst) sat down with Gerardo Butalid from Pushpay for a lively conversation and same-day reaction.
In under an hour they unpack why this is not "old man yells at cloud," why the Pope chose Babel and Nehemiah as the opening image, why an Anthropic co-founder was invited to the promulgation, and what the encyclical is really asking of Catholic leaders, parents, and parishes. And it’s not just whether to use a chatbot, but how to recover the Catholic view of the human person inside an AI-shaped world.
If you only have an hour this week to engage Magnifica Humanitas, start here.
Discussed in the Episode:
– Why Leo took a full year — and why the document came with a trailer
– Babel vs. Nehemiah, fear vs. courage, and building vs. recovery
– What this means for healthcare, finance, employment, education
– Efficiency as a false god, and friction as the soil of virtue
– Why was Anthropic at the Vatican?
– The "civilization of love" — Paul VI → JP II → Leo XIV
– What's the human heart really searching for?
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