Spiritual health includes such things as flourishing, wholeness and the broader concept of the health of the human person. This is aligned with challenges raised in Magnifica Humanitas, the encyclical released by Pope Leo XIV in May. Its focus is on safeguarding the human person in the time of artificial intelligence (AI).

Although there is emerging evidence to support including a spiritual aspect in healthcare, there remains a need to assess potential risks and benefits with AI use and other technological advances to enhance health and well-being across a person’s lifespan. Magnifica Humanitas acknowledges that the ability to care for one another is a fundamental dimension of our humanity. It is mastered through lived experiences, such as offering company to an older adult.

Technology can support mutual care between people and provide tools that help us anticipate and organize things, but it must be done without undermining human freedom and judgment. There are questions about safeguards when using AI to enhance the spiritual domain of health and well-being. 

In 2025, during the liturgical memorial of St. Thomas Aquinas, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and Dicastery for Culture and Education released Note Antiqua et Nova (AN) to address the relationship between AI and human intelligence. They provided guidance on the role of ethics for the development and use of AI (AN 36-48), while addressing specific issues about AI and its use in healthcare (AN 71-76).

Pope Leo has acknowledged the enthusiasm of new technologies — like biomedicine, body engineering, devices and algorithms — that seek to increase human performance and capabilities. He expressed concerns about interpreting progress with AI as surpassing the human condition, something proposed by the philosophical movements of transhumanism and posthumanism. 

Consequently, AI use must respect human dignity and truly serve the common good. It should hold an ethical and spiritual responsibility that every design choice reflects a vision of humanity where technological innovation can be an expression of human participation in the divine act of creation.

AI-associated risks may outweigh potential benefits. Addressing the lack of authenticity, empathy and human connections, as well as the presence of bias, may lead to tailored AI adoption. Other concerns include the risk of technological and personal dependency on AI. However, if the applications can be successful with the preservation of functionality in older adults, then AI could significantly enhance quality of life, reduce suffering and promote spiritual healing in an approach supported by a person’s caregivers. AI could also empower caregivers and providers with more freedom and time dedicated to their relatives or patients.

Assuming that privacy and cybersecurity are addressed in a timely fashion, AI could potentially facilitate intergenerational care, allowing older adults to remain at home instead of being transferred to nursing homes or alternative facilities. For instance, a young person could safely monitor a grandparent remotely, helping them to focus on adherence to a medication schedule, controlling their blood pressure and tracking other relevant parameters. 

This information could then be shared with members of the healthcare team instantaneously and would empower caregivers and family members to spend precious time on meaningful interactions with loved ones instead of constant tasks related to health.

Addressing the promises and pitfalls of AI in contemporary life, Matthew J. Gaudet et al., the AI Research Group of the Dicastery for Culture and Education, offered additional insights with a few potential scenarios. In Encountering Artificial Intelligence: Ethical and Anthropological Investigations, they brought a vision for AI use in different spheres of society, including family, schools and hospitals. 

They warned about the need to protect against the “technocratic paradigm,” as Magnifica Humanitas calls it. Family members and healthcare providers are not ordered for efficiency but for love and care, even within structures that may appear nonfunctional. It would be imperative to consider and uphold core values such as the dignity of the human person, rights of conscience and the obligation to act morally.

AI could make the care of the body and the person more effective and efficient. However, the legitimate concerns raised in Magnifica Humanitas must be addressed. While improving access to care, disease management, education and population health — with timely incorporation of technology at local and global levels — there is potential in artificial intelligence. It may lead to enhancing the well-being of patients and their communities safely, holistically and spiritually.