What Does the Catholic Church Say About Transhumanism?

Pope Leo XIV takes transhumanism seriously enough to give it several sections of Magnifica Humanitas, and his objection is narrower and more interesting than a refusal of enhancement. What he rejects is a vision in which human limitation is a defect, because of what that vision licenses people to do to each other.

What he means by the terms

Leo groups these ideas as currents “that interpret progress as surpassing the human condition,” noting that they form “the ideological background present in some centers of technological power” while occupying the popular imagination in simplified form through media and social networks, usually as an “enhanced human being” or “human-machine hybrid” (§115).

He then declines to caricature them, which is worth noting given how easy caricature would be. They can be likened to “an archipelago of conceptual ‘islands,’ distinct yet connected by a common ‘sea’ of assumptions” (§116). Transhumanism, in general, “envisions the enhancement of human beings through technologies, such as biomedicine, body engineering, devices and algorithms, with the aim of increasing performance and capabilities.” Posthumanism “goes further: it challenges anthropocentrism and envisions a hybridization of human beings, machines and the environment, even anticipating a threshold where humanity surpasses itself in a new evolutionary stage” (§116).

And he explains why he is treating speculative ideas as a live issue. Even when such ideas “remain largely speculative, they gain relevance by altering the collective imagination and thereby influence social, economic and political choices” (§116).

The actual objection

Section 117 states it, and the first clause is the one to hold on to:

“From the perspective of the Church’s Social Doctrine, the key issue is not the use of technology as such, but the vision that underlies it. If the human being is treated as something to be perfected or surpassed, it becomes easier to accept that some lives are less useful, less desirable or less worthy.” (§117)

This is a social argument rather than a metaphysical one. Leo is not principally worried that someone will succeed in transcending human nature. He is worried about what a society does while it believes human nature is a problem awaiting a fix. In the name of progress, he writes, “‘necessary sacrifices’ may begin to be justified, placing the burden on the most vulnerable in pursuit of a supposed optimization of the species” (§117).

He then draws the distinction that keeps the teaching usable: “It is one thing to integrate technology within a human-centered, relational vision; it is quite another to be guided by an outlook that devalues human limits and promises a purely technical form of ‘salvation’” (§117).

A hearing aid, a pacemaker and an insulin pump are not on trial here. The question is which of those two visions a technology is serving.

The argument about limits

The heart of this part of the encyclical is a claim about limitation that runs against almost everything in the surrounding culture. Leo observes that everything appearing as a limit, “incapacity, illness, old age, suffering, vulnerability,” now tends to be seen “primarily as a defect to be corrected, rather than as a reality through which our humanity matures and opens itself to relationship” (§118). His counter-claim is plain: “humanity flourishes not despite limitations, but often through them” (§118).

He is careful not to romanticize suffering, and says it is right to work at relieving it (§118). What he argues is that the attempt to remove limitation entirely takes something else with it:

“To eliminate suffering entirely would mean, in the end, extinguishing love and desire as well. Those who love and desire cannot avoid passing through trial and suffering.” (§120)

Over the years, he continues, we carry lessons that “leave their mark like scars, the memories of a journey shaped by freedom and failure, dreams and disappointments,” and only through the interplay of these “do the wonders of the soul occur within us” (§120). Then the judgement:

“To renounce this adventure, both tragic and splendid, in the name of a presumed transcendence of all limits, could mean many things, but it would no longer be human.” (§120)

Section 122 completes the thought. Finitude accepted “does not diminish us but opens us to recognizing the face of God and others,” and it is precisely because we know vulnerability and failure “that we can recognize the inviolable dignity of every person” and perceive injustice as a scandal (§122).

The Christian version of “more than human”

Leo’s most effective move is to grant that the longing behind transhumanism is real, and then to say it has an older answer. The phrase “more than human,” he writes, “is not an exclusive domain of technological promise.” The Christian tradition has always held that human beings are called to self-transcendence, “not through an escape from reality or a contempt for their limitations, but through their fulfillment in love” (§127).

He grounds it in Saint Thomas. This elevation “surpasses every capability of created nature,” because an infinite disparity separates our finite nature from the life of God, and so the one who makes the passage possible “can only be the Eternal One who gives of himself” (§127).

Which yields the line that answers the engineering version of the same hope:

“We become fully human when we become more than human, when we let God bring us beyond ourselves in order to attain the fullest truth of our being.” (§128, quoting Pope Francis)

Leo names the difference exactly: “what saves humanity is not enhanced self-sufficiency, but a relationship that liberates, a communion that transforms” (§128).

The sentence about error

The most quietly devastating observation in the chapter is about what optimization does to the possibility of change:

“For an algorithm, an error is a flaw to be corrected; for a person, however, an error can be a catalyst for profound change. A person’s future is not calculable, but depends on one’s freedom, elevated by the inexhaustible grace of God, and on the relationships cultivated.” (§128)

A system built to eliminate error has no category for repentance, and a person who comes to see himself the way such a system sees him has lost the category too. Leo’s conclusion is that humanity “in all its grandeur and woundedness, must never be replaced or surpassed” (§126), while technological progress that relieves suffering can be welcomed, “provided that we do not abandon the very essence of our humanity, namely the capacity for relationship and love” (§126).

Every section reference is to Leo XIV, Magnifica Humanitas (15 May 2026). The full guide to the encyclical is here.

Related

• Does the Catholic Church Teach That AI Has a Soul?
• What Is the “Technocratic Paradigm”? Pope Leo’s Term Explained