In an unprecedented move, Pope Leo XIV became the first pontiff to formally apologize for the Vatican’s direct role in authorizing the transatlantic slave trade, issuing a sweeping acknowledgment that medieval popes granted European monarchs explicit theological permission to enslave millions.
The acknowledgment came in “Magnifica Humanitas,” or “Magnificent Humanity,” the 70-year-old pope’s first encyclical since becoming the first American to lead the Catholic Church. The document, subtitled “On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence,” draws a direct line from the church’s centuries-old complicity in human bondage to what Leo describes as “new forms of slavery” emerging from digital economies and artificial intelligence.
“It is impossible not to feel deep sorrow when contemplating the immense suffering and humiliation endured by so many in stark contrast to their immeasurable dignity as persons infinitely loved by the Lord,” Leo wrote, characterizing the Vatican’s record as a “wound in Christian memory.” He added: “For this, in the name of the church, I sincerely ask for pardon.”
While previous pontiffs have expressed regret for individual Christians’ participation in the slave trade, none had publicly acknowledged the institutional role popes themselves played in providing the theological foundation for European colonization and enslavement of “infidels.”
Five Centuries of Papal Bulls
The historical record Leo confronts is damning. Pope Nicholas V issued “Dum Diversas” in 1452, granting Portuguese sovereigns the right “to invade, conquer, fight and subjugate” “Saracens, and pagans, and other infidels, and enemies of the name of Christ” and “to reduce their persons to perpetual slavery.” He followed with “Romanus Pontifex.” Pope Callixtus III reaffirmed the directives in 1456, Pope Sixtus IV expanded them in 1481, and Pope Leo X extended them again in 1514.
These papal bulls collectively formed the Doctrine of Discovery, the legal-theological framework that legitimized colonial-era land seizures across two continents. For generations, the Vatican maintained it had always upheld the dignity of every human being as a child of God, yet a series of 15th-century papal directives tells a more damning story.
Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin presented the encyclical alongside theologian Leocadie Lushombo, framing the apology as doctrinal teaching binding on the world’s roughly 1.3 billion Catholics, not merely an isolated gesture.
A Personal History Behind the Apology
The apology carries particular weight given Leo’s own family history. The U.S.-born pope’s ancestry includes both enslaved people and slave owners, a detail that has shadowed his pontificate since his election.
Shannen Dee Williams, a historian at the University of Dayton and author of the 2022 book “Subversive Habits,” a history of American Black Catholic nuns, welcomed the encyclical as a “monumental step toward the kind of essential truth-telling and reparation that many Catholics have prayed and worked to witness.” She added that “Black Catholics have waited a long time to hear the Vatican speak honestly about the church’s leading roles in the trans-Atlantic slave trade and chattel slavery — and thus by extension the enduring systems of anti-Black racism in the world today.”
For Black American Catholics, activists and scholars who have spent decades pressing the Holy See to atone for its colonial-era conduct, the encyclical marks a turning point.
Why AI Sits at the Center
Leo’s decision to link the slavery apology to a treatise on artificial intelligence reflects his argument that the same impulses behind chattel slavery — reducing persons to commodities, concentrating power, and the moral blindness of those who profit — are reasserting themselves through algorithms and digital labor markets.
“This is why the memory of past complicity and blindness in the face of the injustice of slavery becomes a call to vigilance,” Leo wrote. “What we have learned, must be translated into discernment and responsibility in the present.”
While the encyclical concedes that AI “can be a valuable tool,” it warns that adopting it “rapidly and uncritically” exposes humanity to risks ranging from environmental damage to the warping of public discourse by “algorithms that … can magnify polarization and resentment.”
The pope is most uncompromising regarding military applications, declaring that “it is not permissible to entrust lethal or otherwise irreversible decisions” to machines — a pointed observation given the Pentagon’s expanded use of AI tools. “No algorithm can make war morally acceptable,” Leo wrote, arguing that automated systems “can only bring about conflict more quickly and render it more impersonal.”
He calls for “robust legal frameworks,” “independent oversight,” informed users and a political system that does not abdicate its responsibility, warning of advancements “concentrating wealth and power in the hands of a select few.” His prescription is blunt: “What is needed is a more active political involvement that is capable of slowing things down when everything is accelerating.”
By yoking that warning to an unprecedented reckoning with the church’s own past, Leo has signaled that his pontificate intends to measure the future against the failures of the past — and to name both without flinching.
