Anthropic Lobbied Vatican to Soften Pope's AI Encyclical

Days before Pope Leo XIV's first encyclical was presented at the Vatican on May 25, 2026, Anthropic co-founder Chris Olah read an advance copy and proposed that the company pull out of the launch, the New York Times reported. The sticking point sat in a passage saying AI systems "do not undergo experiences, do not possess a body, do not feel joy or pain," and adding that "Nor do they have a moral conscience."

Olah stayed. His team instead lobbied Pope Leo's advisers privately. The 40,000-word encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, did not budge.

On stage next to the pope on May 25, Olah offered a contrasting read of what Anthropic's researchers claim to see inside the models: "We find internal states that functionally mirror joy, satisfaction, fear, grief and unease." He added, "I don't know what that means, but I think it warrants ongoing discernment."

The outreach runs well beyond one event. Since fall 2025, Anthropic has flown religious scholars to its offices under non-disclosure agreements to discuss whether Claude might be conscious, among them Rabbi Mois Navon, Catholic bioethicist Charles Camosy and Notre Dame philosopher Meghan Sullivan. Attendees were handed coffee mugs and orange-bound copies of Claude's constitution. The University of North Carolina theologian David Decosimo, writing on X about the pattern, described it as lobbying "all while wining & dining them to the max."

The lobbying itself is on the record. The specific lines Anthropic asked the drafters to change, and the names of the papal advisers who took its meetings, are not.