Pope Leo XIV laid out the imaginative and prescient of his papacy Saturday, figuring out synthetic intelligence as one of the crucial crucial issues dealing with humanity and vowing to proceed in a few of the core priorities of Pope Francis.
In his first formal viewers, Leo repeatedly cited Francis and the Argentine pope’s personal 2013 mission assertion, making clear a dedication to creating the Catholic Church extra inclusive, attentive to the devoted and a church that appears out for the “least and rejected.”
Leo, the primary American pope, instructed the cardinals who elected him that he was absolutely dedicated to the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, the Nineteen Sixties conferences that modernized the church. He recognized AI as one of many predominant points dealing with humanity, saying it poses challenges to defending human dignity, justice and labor.
In one other trace to his priorities, the Vatican revealed that Leo, a member of the Augustinian non secular order, would retain the motto and coat of arms that he had as bishop of Chiclayo, Peru. The motto, “In Illo uno unum,” was pronounced by St. Augustine in a sermon to elucidate that “although we Christians are many, in the one Christ we are one.”
Pope Leo XIV meets the Faculty of Cardinals within the New Synod Corridor on the Vatican, Saturday, Might 10, 2025.
Vatican Media / AP
Leo referred to AI in explaining the selection of his title: His namesake, Pope Leo XIII, was pope from 1878 to 1903 and laid the muse for contemporary Catholic social thought. He did so most famously together with his 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum, which addressed staff’ rights and capitalism on the daybreak of the commercial age. The late pope criticized each laissez-faire capitalism and state-centric socialism, giving form to a distinctly Catholic vein of financial instructing.
In his remarks Saturday, Leo stated he recognized together with his predecessor, who addressed the good social query of the day posed by the commercial revolution within the encyclical.
“In our own day, the church offers everyone the treasury of its social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defence of human dignity, justice and labour,” he stated.
Towards the top of his preach, Francis grew to become more and more vocal concerning the threats to humanity posed by AI and referred to as for a world treaty to manage it.
He warned that such highly effective expertise dangers turning human relations into mere algorithms. Francis introduced his message to the Group of Seven industrialized nations when he addressed their summit final 12 months, insisting AI should stay human-centric in order that selections about when to make use of weapons and even less-lethal instruments at all times stay made by people and never machines.
Pope Leo XIV meets the Faculty of Cardinals within the New Synod Corridor on the Vatican, Saturday, Might 10, 2025.
Vatican Media / AP
The late Argentine pope additionally used his 2024 annual peace message to name for a world treaty to make sure AI is developed and used ethically, arguing {that a} expertise missing human values of compassion, mercy, morality and forgiveness is simply too perilous to develop unchecked.
Francis in some ways noticed the Chicago-born Augustinian missionary Robert Prevost as one thing of an inheritor obvious: He moved him to take over a small Peruvian diocese in 2014, the place Prevost later grew to become bishop and head of the Peruvian bishops convention, after which referred to as him to Rome to take over one of the crucial vital Vatican places of work vetting bishop nominations in 2023.
Within the speech, delivered in Italian within the Vatican’s synod corridor – not the Apostolic Palace – Leo made repeated references to Francis and the mourning over his dying. He held up Francis’ mission assertion on the 2013 begin of his preach, “The Joy of the Gospel,” as one thing of his personal marching orders, suggesting he intends very a lot to proceed in Francis’ priorities.
He cited Francis’ insistence on the missionary nature of the church and the necessity to make its management extra collegial. He cited the necessity to concentrate to what the devoted say “especially in its most authentic and inclusive forms, especially popular piety.” Once more, referring to Francis’ 2013 mission assertion, Leo cited the necessity for the church to specific “loving care for the least and rejected” and have interaction in brave dialogue with the modern world.
American Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost presides over his first Holy Mass as Pope Leo XIV with cardinals within the Sistine Chapel after the Conclave on Might 09, 2025 in Vatican Metropolis, Vatican.
Simone Risoluti / Getty Photos
Greeted by a standing ovation as he entered, Leo learn from his ready textual content, solely trying up often. Even when he first appeared to the world on the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica on Thursday night time, Leo learn from a ready, handwritten textual content that he will need to have drafted someday earlier than his historic election or the hour or so after. He appeared most snug, talking off-the-cuff within the few phrases he pronounced in Spanish.
“Rob used to like to play priest,” Louis Prevost stated. “We’d say ‘Let’s go play cops and robbers,’ and he’d be like, ‘I want to play priest first.”
Prevost was elected the 267th pontiff on Thursday on the fourth poll of the conclave, an exceptionally quick end result given this was the biggest and most geographically various conclave in historical past and never all cardinals knew each other earlier than arriving in Rome.
Cardinals have stated Prevost didn’t make any main speech throughout the pre-conclave discussions, and he carried into the conclave the standard taboo precluding a pope from america given America’s superpower standing. However Prevost was already recognized to lots of them given his a long time as a missionary after which bishop in Peru, and had been the top of the Vatican’s bishops workplace since 2023.
They stated he made an impression in smaller teams the place English was the important thing language of communication in a conclave that introduced collectively 133 cardinals from 70 international locations.
Madagascar Cardinal Désiré Tsarahazana instructed reporters on Saturday that on the ultimate poll, Prevost had acquired “more” than 100 votes. That implies a rare margin, properly past the two-thirds, or 89 votes, essential to be elected.
Extra from CBS Information
