Faith

Pope Leo warns Chiclayo students: human limits are 'not a manufacturing defect' as transhumanism promises life without death

Chiclayo, Peru • November 13, 2026 • By Press Pass USA

Pope Leo XIV blesses students and professors at Santo Toribio de Mogrovejo Catholic University in Chiclayo, Peru

Photo: Simone Risoluti / Vatican Media

Pope Leo XIV warned thousands of university students in Chiclayo on Friday that the promises of transhumanism — a future without illness, aging or death — would turn longer life into "a privilege for millionaires who claim immortality, while entire peoples suffer misery and oppression." Human limits, he said, are "not a manufacturing defect, but the condition of human greatness."

Leo spoke late Friday afternoon at Santo Toribio de Mogrovejo Catholic University, where he served as grand chancellor during his eight years as bishop of Chiclayo. He crossed the campus in a small electric "mini popemobile" to an esplanade where about 9,000 students from 18 universities greeted him with chants of "Leo, brother, you are from Chiclayo," according to Peru's state news agency Andina. The Vatican estimated about 6,000 people gathered for the meeting.

A Catholic university, Leo told the students and professors, must be "a forge of talents and a laboratory of meaning: a space where intelligence does not bow before usefulness, but serves the truth faithfully." He warned against reducing higher education to job training for a competitive market, saying "a progress that is indifferent to justice and to the dignity of workers becomes, in fact, a mechanism of oppression and of discard," and that "science without conscience ruins the life of all."

"Today, promises of transhumanism and posthumanism are multiplying," the pope said. "These are ideological movements that claim technology will eventually eliminate every disease and every form of pain, as well as aging and even death itself." Technology, he warned, "is not always neutral," and students should seek "that wisdom that neither machines nor computer programs can have." He cautioned against a "technocratic paradigm which reduces reality to material data, considering efficiency to be the supreme value," and said "technology without a soul does not truly improve life."

But the limit, Leo insisted, is not something to be engineered away. "Christian anthropology recalls that the limit is not a manufacturing defect, but the condition of human greatness," he said. That limit, he added, "is a call to solidarity and an openness to transcendence."

Bishop Edinson Edgardo Farfán Córdova, Leo's successor in Chiclayo and the university's current grand chancellor, said a Catholic university "is called to be a house where faith and reason meet." Rector Patricia Campos Olazábal told the pope: "This will always be his home, his people, his university." She said students immersed in artificial intelligence need to learn to discern what is true from what is false — and not to trade "what makes us truly human, for an algorithm that would never replace our essence."

Three witnesses spoke before the pope. Law student Adriano Alonso Rafael Durand, 22, raised Protestant, described his conversion and receiving baptism, confirmation and first Communion in November 2025. María Guzmán spoke of her 20-year-old son Agustín, who has autism, Lennox-Gastaut syndrome and cancer. "Agustín is our ladder to heaven; he is the one who leads us to God," she said. Ángela, who directs the School of Industrial Engineering, said conversion "is a daily process that is constantly renewed."

Calling the students "the 'natives' of this new time," Leo asked them to view its opportunities "in the light of faith, which is a torch in the confusion and in the darkness of loneliness, boredom and pain." "A living relationship with God comforts us, giving meaning to our crosses, which the Lord Jesus carries with us," he said. Faith, he added, "does not deceive as magic does, which claims to make every problem disappear."

The university address closed a full day in the pope's former diocese. Earlier Friday he celebrated an outdoor Mass before about 500,000 people on the Pampas de Pimentel, and in the afternoon he met clergy, religious, seminarians and lay leaders at the Shrine of Our Lady of Peace, where he said synodality "means walking together, listening, discerning and sharing responsibility in the mission." After the university meeting, he had dinner with the priests of the Diocese of Chiclayo. He remains in the Chiclayo area until Saturday as part of his 12-day South America tour, which runs through November 17.

Sources: National Catholic Register (CNA), "Pope Leo: A Catholic University Must Be 'a Forge of Talents and a Laboratory of Meaning'" (Nov. 13, 2026, full text verified); Rome Reports, "'Science Without Conscience Risks Lives': Pope Leo XIV's Warning at Catholic University in Chiclayo" (Nov. 14, 2026, verified); The Catholic Telegraph (OSV News), "In Chiclayo, Pope calls on local clergy to reject clericalism, warns students against soulless tech" (Nov. 13, 2026, verified); Holy See Press Office, "Meeting with the University Community of 'Santo Toribio de Mogrovejo' Catholic University" (Nov. 13, 2026). Crowd figures are Vatican and Andina estimates.