KUL Researchers Propose AI Governance Model Based on Papal Encyclical

A team of researchers from the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin (KUL), working with a scholar from Finland's University of Eastern Finland, has developed an artificial intelligence governance model that takes this year's encyclical by Pope Leo XIV as its starting point. The paper, published in the international journal AI and Ethics from Springer Nature, is one of the first attempts anywhere to translate a church document into a concrete proposal for dividing power and responsibility over AI systems.

A Question of Responsibility

The central problem the authors raise is how to divide power and responsibility for the operation of AI systems, according to what principles, among the many institutions involved: the developers who build the models, the companies that deploy them commercially, national regulators, and international organizations. The goal is to keep responsibility for a given system's effects from being spread so thin across so many parties that, in practice, no one ends up accountable.

This question is not new in the debate over AI regulation, but the researchers from KUL and Finland chose to answer it from the perspective of Catholic social teaching, drawing directly on the arguments laid out in Pope Leo XIV's encyclical. The paper is therefore an attempt to bring together two vocabularies: the technical language of governance familiar from regulations such as the EU's AI Act, and the language of personalist ethics, in which the dignity of the human person remains the central point of reference.

What the Encyclical Says

Magnifica Humanitas, Pope Leo XIV's first encyclical devoted entirely to artificial intelligence, was signed on May 15, 2026, and publicly announced ten days later. In it, the Pope warns that AI systems can create new forms of exclusion and make decisions that run counter to human welfare, because they reflect and reinforce the stereotypes and ideological assumptions of the people who designed and trained them.

The document fits into a broader pattern of Vatican engagement with the AI debate. Leo XIV had earlier set up a Vatican working group on artificial intelligence, and KUL itself signed on to the Rome Call for AI Ethics initiative back in June 2026, an effort promoting ethical principles for AI system design among signatories worldwide.

An Academic Response to the Challenge

The paper in AI and Ethics is a strictly academic work, a peer-reviewed article in a journal specializing in technology ethics, not a church document or an official position of KUL as an institution. The authors present it as an academic response to the challenges raised in the encyclical, an attempt to translate general personalist principles into language that can be applied in regulatory and business practice.

Fr. Prof. Marcin Hułas of KUL's Institute of Sociological Sciences, commenting earlier on the encyclical itself, stressed that according to the Pope, algorithms recognize and process patterns, but the source of genuine agency remains solely the personal intelligence of the human being. That distinction between the operation of a machine and the agency of a person is one of the pillars underpinning the proposed governance model as well.

Algorithms recognize and process patterns, but the source of genuine agency remains solely the personal intelligence of the human being. - Fr. Prof. Marcin Hułas, Institute of Sociological Sciences, KUL

Why It Matters for Poland

For Poland's own AI debate, the publication carries added significance for two reasons. First, it comes out of a domestic university just as Poland is still building its own AI oversight apparatus. The law implementing the EU AI Act is already in force, but the national supervisory commission is not due to launch until November. Second, the KUL model feeds into a broader, global discussion about whether regulation based solely on technical risk criteria, as in the EU's approach, is enough, or whether frameworks that also invoke values and moral responsibility are needed too.

KUL has run a research program on artificial intelligence for several years, covering machine learning, natural language processing, automated reasoning, and the design of intelligent systems, and it has recently begun offering a degree program in Artificial Intelligence. The AI and Ethics publication shows the university trying to bring these technical competencies together with philosophical and theological reflection, rather than treating them as separate domains.

The model currently has no legal force and no status as an official position of any church or state institution. It is a scholarly proposal meant to feed further academic and regulatory discussion. Its practical impact will depend on whether it is taken up by the institutions that actually shape legal frameworks, such as EU regulators enforcing the AI Act or the national supervisory commissions now being set up in individual member states.