Pope Leo XIV, Peter Thiel, and the Future of Humanity: The New Pope’s First Encyclical and Its Political Significance

Martina Bär is professor of fundamental theology at the University of Graz (Austria).

This post is a part of our series on Magnifica Humanitas.

“The Pope is working for the Chinese Communists.” With this provocative statement, US tech billionaire Peter Thiel made international headlines just weeks after Pope Leo XIV published his first encyclical. According to Thiel, the West risks losing the race for artificial intelligence (AI) to China—not least because moral authorities such as the Vatican are slowing technological progress. While authoritarian states continue to develop AI without restraint, democratic societies, he argues, place unnecessary constraints on themselves by worrying about ethics. Behind this criticism lies a worldview that regards technological superiority as the decisive factor in global geopolitical power.

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The Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine: Implications for the Prosecution of Religious Leaders

Michelle Coleman is a senior lecturer in law at Swansea University.

There is no doubt that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 was an act of aggression by the Russian State. In international law aggression is generally understood as when a country either starts a war against another country or engages in actions that drive another country to go to war. It is grounded in the idea that attacking another country goes against the peace and security and victim states’ own sovereignty and right to self-determination.

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