On May 25, 2026, the Vatican publicly presented Pope Leo XIV's first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas. It is the first papal encyclical in history to address artificial intelligence directly. The Pope signed it on May 15, 2026, the 135th anniversary of Rerum Novarum, the document that founded modern Catholic Social Doctrine on labor and capital. The choice of date is the citation. This is a 135-year-old institution speaking to the question every CEO is now sitting with.
You do not need to be Catholic to get value from this episode. You do not need to be a Christian. The encyclical was written for "all men and women of goodwill," which is the Vatican's long-standing way of saying anyone willing to think seriously about the question.
In this 25-minute episode, Harrison walks the four ideas every CEO needs in their head this week:
1. The Babel-or-Jerusalem move that reorganizes the entire public AI conversation
2. Why technology is never neutral, and what that means for vendor selection and procurement
3. The dignity-of-worker question that cuts directly at the language most companies use to justify an AI investment case
4. The technocratic critique, the concentration question, and where this converges with secular AI governance research from RAND and the Future of Life Institute
Then three specific things to do with this letter this week before your next AI conversation on the calendar.
Full article version with citations and direct quotes at launchready.ai/insights/faith.
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Harrison Painter
Executive AI Consultant
LaunchReady.ai.
Further. Faster.