Pope Leo XIV Warns of Dehumanisation in UNESCO Address in Paris

Pope Leo XIV delivered an address at UNESCO headquarters in Paris on Friday, using the occasion to warn that scientific and technological advances, when detached from ethical grounding, can become instruments of destruction.

He was received on stage by UNESCO Director-General Khaled El-Enany, with the audience standing, applauding and cheering as he walked to the podium.

Drawing on the organisation's 1945 Constitution, the Pope recalled its preamble's observation that since wars begin in the minds of men, the defences of peace must be built there as well. Those words, written after the Second World War, remained strikingly relevant, he said, noting that humanity had come to understand how scientific progress without wisdom can turn into a weapon, how culture subjected to ideology can degenerate into falsehood and propaganda, and how education that abandons truth can become a means of manipulating consciences. Treaties alone, he added, are necessary but not sufficient; they require a culture of peace and a shared commitment to sustain them.

Turning to artificial intelligence, the Pope said that while many tasks once performed by humans have been handed to machines, certain computational systems have now been given the name of a human faculty — intelligence. He warned that ideas and relationships risk being impoverished by a process of dehumanisation, describing a paradox in which intelligence is attributed to machines while the inalienable dignity of human persons is increasingly hard to recognise, with lives judged by efficiency and discarded when deemed unproductive.

He further observed that although people and continents can now be connected instantaneously, new forms of isolation, material and spiritual poverty, and abandonment are emerging. Communication has grown faster but not necessarily more truthful, and abundant information is not the same as wisdom. Without a shared ethical foundation, he said, the many channels of communication risk multiplying false information and emptying words of meaning, hindering dialogue rather than fostering it. Artificial intelligence, he added, amplifies this problem.

The address followed a meeting earlier in the day with French President Emmanuel Macron at the Élysée Palace, where the Pope raised similar concerns about scientific progress, life and human rights.

The visit, the first official state visit by a pope to France in 18 years, has drawn large public interest despite the country's strict constitutional secularism, which has limited the Catholic Church's influence on ethical questions. Thousands lined the motorcade route waving French and Holy See flags, some enduring hours of unseasonable heat for a glimpse of the pontiff. Macron said the visit brings a source of hope to many French people.