PARIS: Pope Leo XIV warned Friday that a "paradise of machines" risked undermining humanity as he opened a trip to France by posing fundamental questions about what it means to be human in the age of artificial intelligence, a nuclear arms race and other threats to life itself.
Leo raised existential concerns about scientific progress, life and human rights during his opening speech to President Emmanuel Macron and authorities at the Élysée Palace and then to diplomats and United Nations employees at the headquarters of UNESCO, the U.N. culture and education organization.
With wars plaguing Europe and West Asia, he reaffirmed the Vatican's opposition to nuclear weapons and said the nuclear deterrence doctrine was "mistaken" since it was just fueling a new arms race.
"Peace is not a balance of power; rather, it is built day by day through dialogue and justice," he said.
Leo has an intense four days in France, where the Catholic Church has lost ground on influencing ethical issues given the strict approach to secularism that is enshrined in the French Constitution.
Yet thousands of people lined his motorcade route, waving French and Holy See flags, with some braving hours of the unseasonable heat to catch a glimpse of him. The turnout underscored the surprising level of interest in Leo's visit, the first official state visit by a pope to France in 18 years.
Macron said Leo's visit brings "a source of hope" to many French people.
A capstone visit as Macron's term ends
For Macron, who is barred from seeking a third term in May elections, hosting the American pope is something of a capstone. Pope Francis had refused repeatedly to make a proper state visit to France during his 12-year pontificate and pointedly refused to join the inauguration of the rebuilt Notre Dame cathedral in 2024.
"For a president of the republic as Macron, who is at the end of his mandate, it can be important to be aside the pope and to capture a part of his popularity," said Charles Mercier, director of history and sociology of Catholicism studies at Paris EPHE university.
With seven months left in his term, Macron's approval ratings are near record lows, driven by anger over the rising cost of living and criticism of France's growing debt and deficit and deteriorating public services.
Smiling broadly as Leo spoke French, Macron thanked the pope for visiting, saying: "You are here with us for an extended visit, giving us your time, and that is moving."
The Rev. Aristide Ahidote, from Ivory Coast, was among those who planned to attend the pope's vespers service in Notre Dame later Friday. "God has given us a pope with vigor and strength," he said.
Leo calls for the French to mull lofty questions about life
Unlike Francis, who liked to travel to small Catholic communities far from Rome, Leo has been keen to emphasize and reawaken Europe's Christian roots. He is seeking to push the church's message about the value and dignity of human life in a country where the right to abortion was enshrined in the constitution in 2024, and where lawmakers recently gave final approval to a bill allowing adults with incurable illnesses to receive lethal medication.
The French Catholic hierarchy strongly opposed the measures, in keeping with Catholic teaching that human life must be protected and defended from conception until natural death.
In his speech to Macron and other government and diplomatic authorities, Leo reminded France of its "deep Christian roots" and called for the French to remember that the right to life is the "indispensable foundation of every other human right."
His concern about the dignity of human life and humanity as a whole extended to the threats posed by artificial intelligence.
"The paradox has become increasingly evident: while 'intelligence' is attributed to computational systems, we struggle to recognize the inalienable dignity of human persons, whose lives are judged according to the criterion of efficiency and, when deemed no longer productive, are rejected and discarded," he said.
From the very start of his pontificate, Leo has identified AI as one of the greatest challenges facing humanity. He dedicated his first encyclical to the topic, "Magnificent Humanity," calling for robust regulation and for AI developers to work for the common good rather than profit.
Leo also appealed to AI developers and political leaders responsible for regulating them to slow down, an appeal that several top AI companies seem to have taken to heart in recently.
"If we are to avoid losing our humanity amid a 'paradise of machines' invading and conditioning our daily lives, there is an urgent need for education in ethical discernment and the capacity to acknowledge the moral good," he said.
Leo earlier told reporters that he was pleased his message was being heard and said he hoped the dialogue that the Vatican initiated with tech companies would continue.
"And I think from their perspective, many of them, they're very much open to looking for ways of making sure that AI does not displace or ultimately destroy humanity, but rather than be a tool for human beings," he said.
A visit to Notre Dame that Francis declined
Later Friday, Leo presided over evening prayers in Paris' soaring Notre Dame cathedral, the first pope to celebrate there since the devastating 2019 fire that consumed the cathedral's roof and toppled its spire.
After being mobbed by a crowd of eager nuns outside, Leo walked down the central aisle to the combined thundering of the organ above and cheers from the pews below. As bells tolled, he knelt in silent prayer in the same spot where, in 2019, flames brought down scorched roof beams.
Leo marveled at the brilliance of the stained-glass windows and restored cream columns and praised the artisans who repaired them. He urged the priests and nuns gathered in the pews to be inspired by the combined effort to bring the Gothic masterpiece back to life.
Francis had refused to visit France on a proper state visit, and explicitly refused Macron's invitation to come for the 2024 reopening of the cathedral that drew dozens of world leaders.
He did make three short trips to French cities, however, including Strasbourg in 2014 and Marseille and Corsica in 2024, a one-day visit that became his last foreign trip.
