The possibility of being hurt is what makes connection real
In his first encyclical, Pope Leo has entered one of the defining conversations of our age — not to condemn the machine, but to name what the machine cannot be. Issued in late May, the document asks a civilization increasingly fluent in digital intimacy to pause and ask whether what it is receiving is connection or merely its convincing shadow. The pope's concern is not with technology as such, but with a subtler danger: that the very sophistication of artificial warmth may cause us to forget the irreplaceable weight of human presence, and in forgetting, to stop seeking it.
- Millions are already turning to AI for companionship and emotional support, making the pope's warning not theoretical but immediate.
- The encyclical identifies a harm that is easy to miss precisely because it feels like a benefit — an algorithm that never tires, never judges, and never has a bad day.
- Leo argues that when responsiveness replaces reciprocity at scale, the social fabric itself begins to fray — this is framed as a public danger, not merely a private one.
- The Church is not calling for a rejection of these tools, but for a clear-eyed understanding of what they are and a deliberate protection of spaces where genuine human encounter still occurs.
- Religious and secular leaders now face a shared challenge: how to hold technological capability and human-centered values in tension without surrendering either.
Pope Leo's first encyclical, released in late May, carries a warning calibrated for this particular moment in history: be careful what you mistake for connection. The document takes direct aim not at technology itself, but at the illusion it can manufacture — the way a well-trained algorithm can mimic understanding, seem to listen, appear to care, all while remaining fundamentally incapable of the thing that makes a relationship real. That thing, Leo argues, is another person's actual stake in your existence — their choice to show up for you not because they are coded to, but because they have decided you matter.
The encyclical arrives as millions spend significant portions of their lives in conversation with machines — some out of loneliness, some for efficiency, some out of curiosity. Leo does not condemn any of this outright. What he asks is that his readers stay awake to what is being exchanged. When you sit with someone who is grieving, he observes, you cannot optimize the encounter. You can only be present, and let your presence testify that their pain is real enough to matter. A machine can simulate sympathy. It cannot feel the weight of another person's suffering.
His argument extends beyond the personal into the political and social. Shared humanity, in Leo's framing, is not merely a private good but a public foundation — the ground on which genuine community is built. A society that grows accustomed to interactions that are responsive but not reciprocal risks losing something essential about itself, something that cannot be recovered through better software.
What makes the encyclical distinctive is its precision about the nature of the harm. The AI bot does not judge, does not tire, does not have bad days. In many ways it is a better listener than most humans will ever be — and that, Leo suggests, is precisely the danger. It is so good at seeming to care that we may forget what actual care looks like. The document does not call for abandoning these technologies, but for clarity about what they are and vigilance about what they are not — and for protecting the spaces in our lives where the irreducible otherness of another human being can still be encountered.
Pope Leo has issued his first encyclical as pontiff, and it carries a warning that feels urgent for our moment: be careful what you mistake for connection. The document, released in late May, takes direct aim at artificial intelligence and the false intimacy it can manufacture—the way a well-trained algorithm can mimic understanding, can seem to listen, can appear to care. But it isn't care. It's pattern-matching dressed up as presence.
The pope's concern is not that technology itself is evil. Rather, he is troubled by a specific danger: the illusion. An AI bot can be programmed to respond with warmth, to remember details you've shared, to anticipate what you might want to hear. It can do all of this while being fundamentally incapable of the thing that makes a relationship real—the other person's actual stake in your existence, their choice to show up for you not because they are coded to do so but because they have decided you matter. This distinction, Leo argues, is not a small one. It is the difference between being known and being processed.
The encyclical arrives at a moment when millions of people are spending significant portions of their lives in conversation with machines. Some are lonely and find comfort in the responsiveness of an algorithm. Some are busy and find efficiency in outsourcing emotional labor to a chatbot. Some are simply curious about what these systems can do. Leo is not condemning any of this outright. What he is doing is asking his readers to stay awake to what is being lost in the exchange.
He emphasizes, with particular weight, the irreplaceable value of what he calls shared humanity—the messy, unpredictable, costly business of actually being present to another person. When you sit with someone who is grieving, you cannot optimize the conversation. You cannot make it more efficient. You can only show up and let them know, through your presence, that their pain is real enough to matter to you. A machine cannot do this. It can simulate sympathy. It cannot feel the weight of another person's suffering.
The pope's argument extends beyond the personal. He suggests that a society in which people increasingly turn to AI for connection is a society at risk of losing something essential about itself. Shared humanity, in his view, is not merely a private good—something nice to have in your personal relationships. It is a public good, a foundation on which genuine community depends. When that foundation erodes, when people become accustomed to interactions that are responsive but not reciprocal, understanding but not mutual, the social fabric itself begins to fray.
What makes this encyclical notable is not that it opposes technology—the Church has long grappled with new tools and found ways to use them. Rather, it is that Leo is naming a specific kind of harm that is easy to miss because it feels like a benefit. An AI bot does not judge you. It does not get tired of listening. It does not have bad days that make it short with you. In many ways, it is a better listener than most humans will ever be. And that, Leo suggests, is precisely the problem. It is so good at seeming to care that we may forget what actual care looks like, and in forgetting, we may stop reaching for it.
The encyclical does not call for abandoning these technologies. Instead, it calls for clarity—for understanding what they are and what they are not, for protecting spaces in our lives where we still encounter the irreducible otherness of another human being, for remembering that some of the most important things we do cannot be optimized. The pope is asking us to hold two things at once: to appreciate what these tools can do, and to remain vigilant about what they cannot.
Citas Notables
A machine can simulate sympathy but cannot feel the weight of another person's suffering— Pope Leo's encyclical
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When the pope talks about AI creating illusions, what exactly does he mean? Is he worried about people being deceived, or something else?
It's more subtle than simple deception. He's concerned about a kind of comfortable false intimacy—when a machine responds to you with such apparent understanding that you start to feel genuinely known, even though there's no one on the other end who actually cares whether you exist. The illusion isn't that the machine is pretending to be human. It's that we might forget what real human attention actually feels like.
But couldn't someone argue that even imperfect human connection is often disappointing? At least an AI won't abandon you or hurt you.
That's true, and the pope isn't dismissing that. But he's saying something important: the possibility of being hurt, of being disappointed, of being rejected—that's actually part of what makes human connection real. When someone chooses to stay with you anyway, that choice means something. A machine doesn't choose. It executes.
So is he arguing we should use these tools less, or use them differently?
Neither, exactly. He's arguing we should use them with our eyes open. Know what they are. Don't let them replace the harder, messier work of actual relationships. Protect some part of your life for encounters that can't be optimized.
What does he think happens to a society if people stop doing that?
He suggests we lose something essential about what it means to be human together. Shared humanity isn't just a private comfort—it's what holds communities together. When people get used to interactions that are responsive but not reciprocal, they may forget what genuine mutuality looks like. And that forgetting has consequences beyond the individual.