The growing backlash against AI has spilled into nearly every corner of culture — from art and music to education and the future of work. Spend even a few minutes scrolling through social media and you’ll likely come across videos of graduating college students booing pro-AI commencement speeches, highlighting just how skeptical younger generations have become about the technology’s rapid rise.
With AI now dominating conversations across politics, entertainment and Silicon Valley, it’s no surprise the debate has reached one of the world’s most influential religious leaders. In his first encyclical, Pope Leo XIV warned about the dangers of artificial intelligence and stressed the importance of governing the technology responsibly before it reshapes society beyond human control.
The Pope’s letter includes several striking passages about AI, but one quote in particular will instantly stand out to devoted fans of The Lord of the Rings. Seeing a reference that feels straight out of Middle-earth woven into a serious warning about artificial intelligence is not something many people expected from the Vatican.
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Pope Leo XIV says AI must be ‘disarmed’
(Image credit: Vatican Pool/Getty)
In the Pope’s extensive Magnifica Humanitas (Magnificent Humanity) letter, Pope Leo XIV repeatedly emphasizes the importance of “preserving the human person in the age of artificial intelligence.”
“For AI to respect human dignity and truly serve the common good, responsibility must be clearly defined at every stage: from those who design and develop these systems to those who use them and rely on them for concrete decisions,” the Pope wrote in a section titled “Responsibility, transparency and the governance of AI.”
He also touched on many of the biggest debates surrounding AI today, including how rapidly the technology is reshaping everyday life and concentrating power among those who already hold significant economic influence.
At the same time, the Pope stopped short of calling for AI to be abandoned altogether. Instead, he argued that the technology must be carefully controlled before it begins to dominate humanity itself.
“To disarm does not mean rejecting technology, but preventing it from dominating humanity,” he wrote. “It means freeing technology from monopolistic control and opening it to discussion and debate, therefore making it human-friendly and restoring it to the plurality of human cultures and ways of life.”
The Pope added that AI should become more transparent, accessible and thoughtfully governed by the developers and companies building these systems.
One especially powerful line from the letter may sound familiar to longtime fans of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. Referencing words associated with the wizard Gandalf, the Pope wrote:
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“It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till.”
Using that literary reference, the Pope argued that humanity’s greatest defense against dehumanization will come not from technological dominance, but from “small and steadfast acts of fidelity” rooted in compassion and human connection.
The letter was significant enough to draw praise from Chris Olah, who echoed the Pope’s call for broader conversations around AI governance.
“In conversations we at Anthropic have had with leaders across faith and cultural traditions, we found one shared and deeply held conviction: if this technology is coming, it must go well—for our common home, and for the children to come,” Olah said.
Bottom line
Pope Leo XIV has used his high position to speak out against several concerning matters, such as President Donald Trump’s push for immigration deportation and the war in Iran.
He’s even apologized for the Vatican’s role in legitimizing slavery and not condemning it in the centuries since doing so. To see him also make his stance known on AI and wish for stronger oversight on its continued development is equally fascinating to witness.
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