Caught between a U.S. government determined to strip its ethical guardrails and a European public wary of Big Tech, Anthropic is turning to an unlikely power broker - the Catholic Church - as it eyes Italy as its next strategic frontier. Pope Leo XIV will personally present his first major teaching document on AI’s ethical challenges alongside Christopher Olah, co-founder of Anthropic and developer of Claude, one of the world’s most widely used AI models.
The encyclical, titled *Magnifica Humanitas*, will be released on May 25, 2026, addressing “the protection of the human person in the age of artificial intelligence.” Shortly after, CEO Dario Amodei is expected to travel to Rome for meetings with senior Italian institutional figures – a visit that signals the company’s concrete ambitions in the country and raises expectations of potential investment announcements.
