Pope creates artificial intelligence study group as Vatican prepares to release his first encyclical

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Leo XIV has created a study group on artificial intelligence, the Vatican said Saturday, as he gears up to release his first encyclical that is expected to emphasize the need for an ethics-based approach to the technology that prioritizes human dignity and peace.

The Vatican said Leo had decided to create the in-house study group because of the acceleration in AI's use, “its potential effects on human beings and on humanity as a whole (and) the church’s concern for the dignity of every human being.”

The announcement came a day after Leo signed his encyclical, 135 years to the day after his namesake, Pope Leo XIII, dated his most important encyclical, “Rerum Novarum,” or Of New Things. That document addressed workers’ rights, the limits of capitalism, and the obligations that states and employers owed workers as the Industrial Revolution was underway.

It became the foundation of modern Catholic social thought, and the current pope has already cited it in relation to the AI revolution, which he believes poses the same existential questions that the Industrial Revolution posed over a century ago. The new encyclical is expected to place the AI question in the context of the church's social teaching, which also covers issues such as labor, justice and peace.

“I think that the Catholic Church in many ways is going to be the adult in the room on some of these debates about how we are going to integrate AI into the rest of our society,” said Meghan Sullivan, a philosophy professor at the University of Notre Dame who directs its ethics institute. “For sure, the pope is going to be one of the most forceful advocates for human dignity in these discussions.”

Just days after his 2025 election, Leo told the cardinals who made him pope that the Catholic Church owed it to the world to offer the “treasury of its social teaching” to confront the challenges posed by AI on “human dignity, justice and labor.”

The public release of the encyclical, expected in the coming weeks, will likely become a new flashpoint between the Chicago-born Leo and the Trump administration, which has made the rapid development of AI a matter of vital national economic and security strategy. The United States has strongly rejected international regulatory efforts to rein in AI and the Trump administration has removed bureaucratic roadblocks slowing its development domestically.

The flurry of Vatican activity came as U.S. President Donald Trump wrapped up a visit to China that included AI business. Traveling with Trump on Air Force One were, among others, Elon Musk, whose social media platform X features his AI chatbot Grok, and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who recently secured federal approval to sell H200 AI chips to Chinese buyers.

Since the AI boom kicked off with ChatGPT’s debut, the technology’s breathtaking capabilities have amazed the world. Tech companies have raced to develop better AI systems even as experts warn of its risks, from existential but far-off threats like rogue AIs running amok to everyday problems like bias in algorithmic hiring systems.

The United Nations last year adopted a new governance architecture to rein in AI after previous multilateral efforts, including AI summits organized by Britain, South Korea and France resulted only in nonbinding pledges. In 2024, the EU adopted its own Artificial Intelligence Act, applying a risk-based approach to its AI rules.

The Vatican has sought to add its voice to the debate, offering ethical guidelines for the application of AI in sectors from warfare to education and healthcare. The underlying call has been that the technology must be used as a tool to complement, and not replace, human intelligence.

The Vatican has also warned of the environmental impact of the AI race, noting the “vast amounts of energy and water” required by AI data centers and computational power.

“There are almost a billion and a half Catholics in the world, so that alone is reason to pay attention,” said Thomas Harmon, theology professor at the University of St. Thomas in Houston. “But beyond the numbers, the Catholic Church has a deep and sophisticated tradition of thinking through what it means to be human.”

In 2020, the Vatican enlisted tech companies to sign on to an AI pledge, known as the Rome Call for AI Ethics, which, among other things, outlined core principles for AI regulation, including inclusiveness, accountability, impartiality, and privacy. Microsoft, IBM and Cisco were among the private sector companies that signed on.

In his final years, Pope Francis called for an international treaty to regulate AI, saying the risks of technology lacking human values of compassion, mercy, morality and forgiveness were too great to merely trust in the morality of AI researchers and developers.

He also brought his authority to bear on the Group of Seven, addressing a special session on the perils and promises of AI in 2024. There, Francis said politicians must take the lead in making sure AI remains human-centric, so that decisions about when to use weapons or even less-lethal tools always remain made by humans. He called ultimately for a ban on the use of lethal autonomous weapons, colloquially known as “killer robots.”

In-house, Leo has warned priests against using AI to write their homilies. But the math major pope, who does spend free time scrolling on his phone, has also raised his voice on the broader implications of AI on world peace, labor and the very meaning of reality.

For the Augustinian pope, generative AI’s ability to misinform and deceive through deepfake imagery is particularly worrisome, given that the search for truth is a fundamental element of his religious order's spirituality.

In a June 2025 speech to an AI conference, Leo acknowledged generative AI’s contributions to healthcare and scientific discovery. But he questioned “its possible repercussions on humanity’s openness to truth and beauty, on our distinctive ability to grasp reality.”

Leo, who has emphasized a constant appeal for peace, has also called for monitoring how AI is being used and developed in warfare in the Middle East and Ukraine, where automated weapons systems are using everything from aerial drones and maritime and ground platforms.

“What is happening in Ukraine, in Gaza and the Palestinian territories, in Lebanon and in Iran illustrates the inhuman evolution of the relationship between war and new technologies in a spiral of annihilation,” he said this past week at La Sapienza, Europe’s largest university.

AP Technology Writer Matt O'Brien in Providence, R.I. contributed to this report.

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Pope Leo XIV arrives for his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Wednesday, May 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

NEW YORK (AP) — A handful of countries in the OPEC+ oil-producing alliance plan to increase their outputs modestly next month, which would bring more oil online after fuel prices have fallen to levels not seen since before the U.S. and Israel's war with Iran.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies — collectively known as OPEC+ — announced on Sunday that seven countries would expand oil production by a combined total of 188,000 barrels per day in August. It was the fifth consecutive month OPEC+ agreed to raise oil outputs.

The participating countries in Sunday's decision are Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Algeria and Oman.

“The countries will continue to monitor and assess market conditions, and in their continuous efforts to support market stability, they reaffirmed the importance of adopting a cautious approach,” the group of oil producers said in a statement.

In the last month, market optimism caused crude oil prices to tumble before and after the U.S. and Iran reached an interim deal to end their fighting. As part of a broader memorandum of understanding, Iran agreed to allow ships to pass unimpeded through the Strait of Hormuz, and the U.S. agreed to end its blockade of Iran's ports.

More and more commercial vessels have since transited the strait, which before the war was a conduit for roughly a fifth of the world's oil. But ship traffic remains below pre-war levels, and tensions over the waterway continue. Iran’s joint military command warned as recently as Thursday that all oil tankers moving through the strait must use its approved routes or face a “forceful response."

Oil prices have continued to decline while negotiators for Iran and the U.S. try to reach a final peace agreement. Brent crude, the international benchmark, was going for under $72 a barrel when shortly after commodities trading opened Sunday night. That's close to what it cost before the U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Iran in late Feburary — and far below soaring prices that in March climbed to nearly $120 per barrel.

The war created an energy crisis in much of the world. With most shipping blocked in the Strait of Hormuz, the limited production hikes pledged by OPEC+ in previous months could not counteract the impact on global oil supplies.

Early in the war, many major oil producers across the Middle East had to cut production because their crude had no where to go. S&P Global Energy said in a recent estimate that it did not expect Gulf oil production to rebound fully until at least the first quarter of 2027.

Energy experts have repeatedly warned that fuel prices and the cost of consumer good were likely to stay elevated long past the conflict's end.

FILE--Reservoirs seen at Priobskoye oil field near Nefteyugansk, in western Siberia, April 5, 2006. (AP Photo/Misha Japaridze, File)

FILE - Iraqi oil workers at an oil installation at Beiji in northern Iraq Tuesday, February 29, 2000. (AP Photo/Jassim Mohammed, File)

FILE - Storage tanks are seen at the North Jiddah bulk plant, an Aramco oil facility, in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, on March 21, 2021. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil, File)

FILE - A Kuwaiti oil worker talks on his radio at Mina Abdulah Oil Refinery, 50 Km South of Kuwait City in this file photo taken April 2005. (AP Photo/Gustavo Ferrari, File)