Atheist AI executive helps present Pope Leo’s new encyclical

VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) —  This morning Pope Leo XIV made the unprecedented decision of introducing his own encyclical and, even more unusually, he invited an atheist to help him.

On May 25, a diverse group presented Magnifica Humanitas  (“Magnificent Humanity”) in the Vatican’s Synod Hall. Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin introduced and moderated the event, which featured interventions by Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, Prefect for the Doctrine of the Faith; Anna Rowlands, professor of theology and religion at Durham University; Leocadie Lushombo, professor of theology at the Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University of California; and Cardinal Michael Czerny, Prefect for the Service of Integral Human Development; and Christopher Olah, an expert in AI. The event concluded with an address by Pope Leo XIV himself.

The presence of Christopher Olah, the Canadian co-founder of Anthropic, an American AI research and development company , aroused particular attention in Italy — and not a little surprise — because he has actively militated against Christianity, specifically against Catholicism.

In August 2010, from his personal Twitter account, Olah shared a link to a website inviting British citizens to protest against the visit of Pope Benedict XVI. A few months later, in February 2011, he reposted an Irish Times article titled: “Bring charges against the Pope for crimes against humanity.”

On a website of the movement known as “Sentientism,” which advocates the idea that all sentient beings possess equal dignity, Christopher Olah is presented as “an ethical vegan and an atheist, implying he has a sentiocentric and naturalistic worldview.”

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In his own speech, Cardinal Parolin said that infinite human dignity should be regarded as the main criterion proposed by the encyclical against technological drifts. He said we must remain vigilant “over new forms of dehumanization” and “faithful to the greatness of the human person.”

Cardinal Fernández explained in his intervention that the title of the encyclical defines humanity as “magnificent” despite its terrible capacity for evil. The cause of this magnificence lies – again – in its “infinite dignity” and in the capacity to love bestowed by God. Examples of such magnificence would reside, according to the Cardinal, in phenomena like art, humanitarian institutions, and great leaders in history, such as Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Pope Leo’s encyclical “mentions the difficult and arduous birth of institutions that protect us such as the Red Cross  [and] the United Nations” as examples of human magnificence, Fernandez asserted.

An important intervention was entrusted to Anna Rowlands, professor of theology and religion at Durham University. The scholar particularly wished to emphasize the continuity between the integral ecology expounded by Pope Francis in the encyclical Laudato si’ and the doctrine of integral humanism that inspires the reflection of Magnifica Humanitas.

According to Rowlands, echoing what is written in the cncyclical itself, contemporary technology can no longer be considered “neutral” today: it would profoundly affect the vision of man and the way in which the Church is called to respond to the challenges of the times.

For the theologian, moreover, the criterion for the moral evaluation of technological progress lies in Christ, who represents the highest manifestation of the fact that all men were created in equality and are bearers of an infinite dignity. Hence the mission of the Church, which according to Rowlands would consist in the process of “revealing the face of God in history” and accompanying “humanity as it struggles towards its true good and to foster unity.”

The ecclesial task, she added, is therefore that of keeping alive the “dialogue with cultures, with sciences, with people of all faiths and beliefs,” within a horizon of openness and shared inquiry.

And again, according to Rowlands, “the Church’s social doctrine invites us into a space of encounter and mutual accompaniment, to share in a collective search for truth, for justice, and for flourishing.”

In her intervention, Leocadie Lushombo proposed a profoundly communitarian anthropology, referring to various tribal and indigenous cosmological visions, such as the African Ubuntu, according to which individual identity would arise from relationship and solidarity with the planet and other people, or the concept of the self as necessarily existing in symbiosis with the environment.

In his concluding intervention, Pope Leo XIV reiterated what is stated in the document, namely that the document is the fruit of “listening” to scientists, engineers, political leaders, and parents, but also to the “cry of the poor” and to concerns regarding autonomous weapons systems and algorithms tainted by prejudices that generate exclusion.

Indeed, within Magnifica Humanitas, particular emphasis is placed on the importance of “listening.” In paragraph 19 of the Encyclical it is stated that the Church “recognizes today’s questions and challenges as the current setting in which to carry out her particular vocation of listening, dialogue and service, and of being responsive to everything concerning the lives of contemporary men and women.”

Furthermore, it is said that the Church’s task is to participate actively “in the processes by which society grows and is organized, and she offers her own contribution to the creation of a more just and fraternal society.” There no longer seems to be any room for the Church as mother and teacher of nations.