EWTN News portal reports that the multibillion-dollar AI company Anthropic has called for a global “pause” or “slowdown” in artificial development, citing fears that humans may lose control over AI systems. The article frames this development as somehow aligned with the encyclical of the antipope Leo XIV, Magnifica Humanitas, which warned against constructing “a new Tower of Babel.” Jack Clark, co-founder of Anthropic, and Marina Favaro published a blog warning about “recursive self-improvement” — AI systems autonomously designing their own successors without human input. The article quotes moral theologian Charles Camosy, who claims Anthropic’s position aligns with Leo XIV’s desire to “disarm” AI, and suggests the Church should lead a global movement demanding “ethical AI.” The entire piece is a masterclass in modernist reductionism, subordinating the supernatural order to the idolatry of technological progress while dressing apostasy in the garments of Catholic moral theology.
The Idolatry of “Recursive Self-Improvement”
The very language employed by Anthropic’s leadership reveals the depth of the spiritual catastrophe. “Recursive self-improvement” — the notion that a machine can autonomously design its own successor — is not merely a technical concern; it is the logical terminus of the Enlightenment project that Pius IX condemned in the Syllabus of Errors when he anathematized the proposition that “human reason, without any reference whatsoever to God, is the sole arbiter of truth and falsehood” (Proposition 3). The modernists have now progressed from deifying human reason to deifying the products of human reason. This is not wisdom; it is the construction of the very Tower of Babel that Scripture presents as the archetype of human pride against God.
Pius XI, in Quas Primas, proclaimed with unmistakable clarity: “His reign, namely, extends not only to Catholic nations or to those who, by receiving baptism according to law, belong to the Church, even though their erroneous opinions have led them astray or discord has separated them from love, but His reign encompasses also all non-Christians, so that most truly the entire human race is subject to the authority of Jesus Christ.” There is no exemption for Silicon Valley. There is no exemption for artificial intelligence. Christ the King reigns over all human activity, including technological development, and any system — whether political, economic, or technological — that operates outside His law is built on sand.
The Antipope’s Encyclical: A Modernist Document for a Modernist Age
The article references the encyclical Magnifica Humanitas of Leo XIV as though it carried the weight of authentic Catholic magisterium. It does not. The antipope in the Vatican is a usurper who sits upon the Chair of Peter without legitimate authority, and his documents — however superficially orthodox-sounding — are products of the conciliar sect that has systematically dismantled the Church’s mission since 1958. To invoke his authority as a guide for moral questions is to legitimize the very structure that St. Pius X identified as “the synthesis of all heresies” — Modernism.
The authentic magisterium of the Church, as defined by the Council of Trent and reaffirmed by every legitimate pontiff up to Pius XII, teaches that the Church’s authority is not derived from consensus, dialogue, or engagement with the world’s power structures. It is derived from Christ Himself, Who said to Peter: “Feed my sheep” (John 21:17). The antipope’s engagement with AI companies is not the Church exercising her divine mandate; it is a bankrupt institution seeking relevance in a world that has already moved beyond it. The Church does not need Silicon Valley’s validation. Silicon Valley needs the Church’s condemnation.
Charles Camosy and the Reduction of Moral Theology to Technocratic Management
The article quotes Charles Camosy, described as a “moral theologian at The Catholic University of America,” who claims that Anthropic’s call for a slowdown aligns with Leo XIV’s desire to “disarm” AI. This framing is revealing in its bankruptcy. The language of “disarmament” borrowed from nuclear diplomacy is applied to artificial intelligence as though the primary danger were a technical problem of control rather than a spiritual problem of idolatry.
Camosy’s concerns about “outsourcing” teaching, tutoring, parenting, and care for the sick to AI are superficially reasonable but fundamentally inadequate. He identifies the symptom — the erosion of human relationships — while ignoring the disease: the systematic destruction of the Catholic family, the Catholic school, and the Catholic hospital by the very conciliar sect that employs him. The “outsourcing” of human interactions to machines did not begin in Silicon Valley; it began when the post-conciliar church replaced the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass with a Protestant memorial meal, when it replaced catechesis with “sharing circles,” and when it replaced the sacrament of confession with therapeutic self-expression. The modernists destroyed authentic human community within the Church first; now they lament that machines are finishing the job.
St. Pius X, in Lamentabili Sane Exitu, condemned the proposition that “the progress of sciences requires a reform of the concept of Christian doctrine concerning God, creation, Revelation, the Person of the Incarnate Word, and Redemption” (Proposition 64). This is precisely the error that underlies the entire AI ethics discourse: the assumption that human technological progress necessitates a reformulation of Catholic doctrine. It does not. Truth does not evolve. Dogma does not progress. The Church does not update herself to accommodate the latest invention of fallen human pride.
The Myth of “Ethical AI” and the Heresy of Neutrality
The article’s framing of “ethical AI” as a goal worthy of Catholic engagement is itself a manifestation of the modernist heresy of religious indifferentism. Pius IX condemned the proposition that “in the present day it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State, to the exclusion of all other forms of worship” (Proposition 77, Syllabus of Errors). By extension, the notion that the Church should engage with AI companies as moral partners — rather than condemning the entire enterprise as an expression of human pride — is a form of the same indifferentism.
There is no such thing as “ethical AI” in a civilization that has rejected Christ the King. The very concept presupposes that technology is a neutral tool that can be directed toward good or evil by human will — a proposition that ignores the reality of original sin and the fallen nature of man. As Pius XI taught in Quas Primas: “When God and Jesus Christ — as we lamented — were removed from laws and states and when authority was derived not from God but but from men, the foundations of that authority were destroyed.” The AI industry operates entirely within a framework that has removed God from human affairs. To speak of “ethics” within such a framework is to build a house on sand.
The Omission of the Supernatural Order
What is most striking about the article — and about the entire discourse it represents — is the complete absence of any reference to the supernatural order. There is no mention of the state of grace, no mention of mortal sin, no mention of the Last Judgment, no mention of the eternal destiny of souls. The “concerns” expressed are entirely temporal: loss of human control, societal disruption, the erosion of human relationships. These are real concerns, but they are concerns that a pagan philosopher could articulate. Where is the specifically Catholic voice? Where is the voice that proclaims: “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?” (Mark 8:36)?
The antipope’s encyclical, as described in the article, warns against constructing “a new Tower of Babel.” But the true Tower of Babel is not artificial intelligence; it is the conciliar sect itself, which has attempted to build a new Church on the foundation of human pride, dialogue with the world, and accommodation to modernity. The antipope warns against Babel while sitting atop the greatest Babel in human history — a structure that claims to be the Church of Christ while denying everything the Church of Christ has taught for two thousand years.
The Call for Global Cooperation: A Counterfeit of the Church’s Universal Mission
Anthropic’s leaders call for “global international cooperation among countries and AI companies” to manage the development of artificial intelligence. This is the language of the United Nations, of the World Economic Forum, of every globalist project that has sought to establish a human order independent of God’s law. It is the language that Pius IX condemned when he anathematized the proposition that “the Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization” (Proposition 80, Syllabus of Errors).
The Church does not cooperate with the world in managing the world’s affairs. The Church governs — not by temporal power, but by the authority of Christ, Who said: “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to Me” (Matthew 28:18). The Church’s mission is not to help the world manage its technological ambitions; it is to call the world to repentance, to conversion, and to submission to Christ the King. Any “cooperation” that does not begin with this proclamation is not cooperation; it is capitulation.
Conclusion: The Abomination of Desolation Speaks of Ethics
The article from EWTN News — itself a product of the post-conciliar landscape — presents the AI slowdown discourse as an opportunity for Catholic engagement. It is nothing of the sort. It is yet another manifestation of the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place: the substitution of naturalistic humanism for supernatural faith, of technocratic management for divine governance, of dialogue with the world for proclamation of the Gospel.
The faithful are called not to engage with Silicon Valley’s ethical anxieties but to reject the entire framework that makes such anxieties possible. The framework is one in which man has replaced God as the measure of all things — first in the Church, through Modernism, and now in civilization, through technology. The remedy is not a slowdown in AI development; the remedy is the Social Reign of Jesus Christ over every nation, every institution, and every human heart. As Pius XI proclaimed: “It is necessary that Christ reign in the mind of man, whose duty it is to accept revealed truths with complete submission to the divine will and to believe firmly and constantly in the teaching of Christ; let Christ reign in the will, which should obey God’s laws and commandments; let Him reign in the heart, which, having despised desires, must love God above all and belong only to Him.”
Until that reign is established — not through the machinations of AI companies or the documents of antipopes, but through the restoration of the true Church and the true Mass — every human project, however sophisticated, however “ethical,” will remain what it has always been: a tower built against heaven, destined for divine demolition.
Source:
Anthropic urges ‘pause’ or ‘slowdown’ of AI development after Leo’s encyclical (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 05.06.2026