Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical, which was widely reported as being due to be signed today, is now not expected to be signed and published until later this month.
According to reports from the German Catholic news agency KNA, it had been due to be signed on May 15. However, Matteo Bruni, director of the Holy See Press Office, told journalists that an announcement regarding the document will be made on May 22.
Circulating under the provisional title Magnifica Humanitas, it is expected to address a range of issues including artificial intelligence, international peace and what sources describe as a crisis in international law.
The encyclical follows earlier indications that the Holy See had been preparing a document focused specifically on artificial intelligence. At the beginning of February, reports pointed to work under way on a text examining the ethical and anthropological implications of emerging technologies.
Pope Leo XIV has already spoken about the risks associated with technological development, warning of the dangers posed by “uncontrolled technology” and stressing the importance of safeguarding human dignity.
According to reports, the encyclical will also address geopolitical instability and the perceived weakening of international legal structures. The document is expected to set out the Church’s response to some of the principal challenges facing humanity in the 21st century.
The anticipated date of May 15 would have matched the signing and publication of Rerum Novarum, Pope Leo XIII’s best-known encyclical, which was issued on May 15, 1891. The document is regarded as the foundational text of modern Catholic social teaching and addressed the condition of workers during the industrial age.
The same date was chosen in 1931 by Pope Pius XI for Quadragesimo Anno, which developed the Church’s teaching on social order and introduced the principle of subsidiarity. Thirty years later, on May 15, 1961, Pope John XXIII promulgated Mater et Magistra, which focused on economic justice and social development.
However, with an announcement now expected on May 22, it is possible that the release date may instead coincide with John Paul II’s Ut Unum Sint, on ecumenism, which was issued on May 25, 1995, or Pope Leo XIII’s Annum Sacrum, which was issued on May 25, 1899 and consecrated the entire human race to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
The expected treatment of artificial intelligence would build on recent Vatican teaching. In January 2025, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Dicastery for Culture and Education issued Antiqua et Nova, a joint note on “the relationship between artificial intelligence and human intelligence”.
The document said AI could bring “important innovations” but warned that it also carried the danger of deepening inequality, manipulating public opinion and expanding “the instruments of war well beyond the scope of human oversight”. It added that artificial intelligence “should not be seen as an artificial form of human intelligence, but as a product of it”, and insisted that it “should be used only as a tool to complement human intelligence rather than replace its richness”.
As yet, no date has been confirmed and the title Magnifica Humanitas remains provisional.
