The Pope says I don’t have to use Claude

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Don’t want to use AI at work? Tell your boss it goes against your religion

POPE LEO XIV, the newly anointed head of the Catholic Church, is not a big AI fan — one of his first big moves as pope was a 42,000-word encyclical, offering theological opinions and interpretations of the rapidly advancing technology, reaffirming the value of humanity, and so on.

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It is all very much in line with what you might expect a religious cleric to say when faced with a new form of quasi-intelligence and its impact on the social and economic order. And apparently it got some Catholics out there thinking, “If the Pope says I shouldn’t use AI, could I get a religious exemption to avoid using it?”

Well, as Jesus said in John 16:24: “Ask, and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.” Earlier this month, reports surfaced of a North Carolina-based software engineer named Erin Maus — a Unitarian Universalist — requesting, and receiving, a workplace accommodation that exempted her from using any generative AI tools.

Prime Minister Mark Carney, who appears to be a fan of AI from an economic development perspective, is also a practicing Catholic. That, however, seems to be unlikely to change Carney’s push for a national AI embrace

“I’m writing my code and reviewing my code by hand, which seems crazy to say,” the engineer said. So far, she says it hasn’t caused her any issues at work; noting that “AI doesn’t really seem to be this game changer,” and adding that “your principles matter.”

One story does not a full trend make, but there seem to be signs that the religious exemption angle — certainly a strong one, given our society’s tendency to protect individual religious liberties — might expand, especially as more AI use is mandated by businesses.

“The funniest possible outcome of the AI mandate era is about to be HR departments discovering that ‘sincerely held religious belief’ under Title VII has a much lower bar than they assumed,” wrote startup founder Corey Quinn. “Pope Leo handed every Catholic employee a written excuse.”

Employment lawyers here in Canada say we might see this start to play out here. “Employees can cite those religious reasons as reasons to be accommodated and not have to use AI,” Canadian employment lawyer Christopher Achkar told Global News.

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Aaron Zaltzman, another employment lawyer, told the news outlet the hardest part of this from a legal perspective is no longer proving that the religious exemption is valid, but that the employee’s religious belief is legitimate. “If it is a religious belief,” he said, “then the employee would be entitled to reasonable accommodation.”

More than anything, employers are on shaky ground to deny the request. “Playing priest, and telling employees their request isn’t legitimate, does not tend to bode well for companies,” said Ashley Herd, a former McKinsey counsel. “A jury doesn’t like it when employees get made fun of by managers or HR.”

Eagle-eyed religion watchers might have flagged another thing: Prime Minister Mark Carney, who appears to be a fan of AI from an economic development perspective, is also a practicing Catholic. That, however, seems to be unlikely to change Carney’s push for a national AI embrace.

However, Carney and Pope Leo XIV have spoken about the subject. “They discussed the imperative that AI must serve humanity, beginning with the protection of the individual,” reads a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office. “Prime Minister Carney expressed Canada’s desire to lead internationally on responsible AI and tools to benefit the global community.

So, no exemption required for the PM. Kieran Delamont