According to the Economist at least, he doesn't seem to know what he wants. The encyclical sounds like a grabbag of every progressive meme and worry out there, whether they contradict each other or not.
You can't have both multilateralism and AI regulation (however that's defined). If you have genuine multilateralism then there will always be some jurisdictions that say they don't want to regulate and gain a competitive advantage by doing so. Because AI is symbolic and accessed over networks, in a truly multilateral world there is no such thing as AI regulation, really. Model development and serving will slowly migrate to jurisdictions that don't pin it down too much.
The only way to stop this is for every jurisdiction in the world to agree on the same set of rules. Which is the One World Government solution, normally in the 21st century approximated with economic pressure e.g. threatening to sanction or blacklist your country if you don't comply with some new rules. The anti-money laundering system is an example of that. And if you become familiar with the stories of its abuse, then AML can sound pretty darn Antichristy. So Thiel isn't far off.
As far as the church is concerned, AI as an issue will come and go, but the ordering and prioritization of human relationships is timeless, and is the important issue. The subtext of the whole thing is that if you get the principles right, the tech policy will fall into place.
You can argue with those principles, but at that point you really are just arguing with Catholicism itself, which is fine, but is besides the point.
(I'm not engaging with or disputing your takes on policy, only with your comment as a critique of the encyclical itself.)
For those of you playing at home, you can definitely have multi-lateral agreements without creating a one world government. We’ve had a chemical weapons ban for decades over which many of the multi-lateral parties were in hot and cold wars with each other. The nations are not going to magically combine over the presence of a treaty. Not how power works.
Of course you can have multilateralism and regulations. And no, AML is not an antichrist.
And Thiel with his plan yo create totalitatian fascist word is one of the greater danger to most of us. Way greater then AML regulations.
Now consider the unlucky German-Turkish journalist Hüseyin Dogru, who was recently placed under trade sanctions by the EU Commission due to his reporting. But they did it while he was living in Europe. The sanctions force everyone - including his neighbours and supermarkets - to refuse to sell him anything.
Then they realized, what if his wife buys him food? So they sanctioned his wife too.
Then they realized, what if his parents buy him food? So they sanctioned his parents as well. Now the entire family cannot buy anything.
Literally the entire family has been put to economic death. The state will imprison anyone who helps them and confiscate the entire net worth of anyone who conceivably might help them. All appeals have been denied.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%BCseyin_Do%C4%9Fru#EU-San...
He is now completely screwed and is reduced to living on a subsidence budget of ~500 EUR/month, calculated to be just enough that his family don't literally die of starvation.
https://x.com/hussedogru/status/2037859218326180064
https://diariosocialista.net/2026/05/28/alemania-recrudece-l...
This is possible because of the systems-level implementation of the AML/sanctions system and its existence outside any kind of justice system. It's the kind of thing that Thiel meant by a totalitarian antichrist. If Jesus were alive today he would presumably have harsh criticisms of this kind of thing.
The world is barreling toward conditions that haven't existed for a century. God help us.
I'll take it, but I really wish we didn't need it.
Sincerely,
Guy Who Talks About Armageddon Nonstop
A studied person once admonished me "avoid the word IS when comparing systems in the abstract"