Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical, “ Magnifica Humanitas ,” has been widely characterized by the media as the Catholic Church’s landmark alarm bell about the perils of artificial intelligence. But it would be a mistake to reduce the encyclical to a warning about AI and its impact on humanity alone. Second, the pope invokes perhaps the most glaring limitation of AI: our urgent need to act together in the real world. “AI tends to amplify the power of those who already possess economic resources, expertise and access to data,” Leo writes. Joseph Tomás McKellar is executive director of Catholics in Communion and PICO California, the state’s largest religious organizing network.