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Pope Leo XIV Condemns AI Art and Defends the Importance of Human Creativity

By Emma Taggart on October 6, 2026

In the age of AI, knowing how to distinguish between human-made and AI-generated art, music, writing, and images is becoming more important than ever. Pope Leo XIV agrees, and on Friday, October 2, he made a speech condemning AI art and calling on the Catholic Church to “renew an alliance with artists and cultural institutions.”

Pope Leo XIV made the speech at the The Art of Possibility: Weaving Together event at the Vatican’s Consistory Hall. The meeting was organized by the Dicastery for Culture and Education and brought together an audience of artists and curators.

Referencing the title of this year’s Vatican pavilion, The Ear is the Eye of the Soul, the Pope described art as an “antenna” that picks up on the deepest “questions of the human heart.” He said, “Art is an essential place of listening, where we allow ourselves to learn about the aspirations and wounds of humanity, its thirst for beauty, for justice and peace, and its search for meaning.”

The Pope also stressed that there’s a distinction between the quality of human creativity and what AI is capable of producing, arguing that there is an “ontological difference” between the two. He quoted a line from his first encyclical letter, titled Magnifica Humanitas, which also cautioned the need for protecting human-made art from the threat of AI, saying, “Algorithms lack the spark of the human, whereas ‘authentic culture and art preserve this spark.’”

Pope Leo XIV ended his address by assuring artists and curators of the importance of their work and how the Catholic Church aims to support them. He said, “The Church regards you with esteem, gratitude, and hope; that it needs you and wishes to walk alongside you, so that together we may safeguard the ‘magnificent humanity’ entrusted to us.”