“Our True Beauty Does Not Lie in Hiding the Signs of Aging” — Pope Leo XIV’s Answer to Bryan Johnson
Johnson has built a movement that’s trying to live forever through science, and he says he has done more against death in two years than Jesus managed in two thousand. Leo answered him Saturday.
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“He has looked upon his handmaid’s lowliness; behold, from now on will all ages call me blessed.” — Luke 1:48
This week I listened to Ross Douthat’s conversation with Bryan Johnson about defeating death. Johnson says his movement is a religion. It is a scientific attempt to beat death, and he has offered his own body as the test case.
Johnson’s nascent faith has its own quasi-liturgies. Small groups meet in “Don’t Die” chapters (loosely modeled on support groups), where members even apologize to their bodies for unhealthy choices as a kind of confession.
At the core of his creed is a belief that “the body is sacred” — essentially, the body is god — and thus preserving its existence indefinitely is the highest good.
To that end, Johnson entrusts himself completely to technology: he tracks every imaginable health metric and lets an AI algorithm set his daily regimen. “It really is in my best interest to let it tell me what to eat, [when] to sleep and exercise,” he told MIT Tech Review, reasoning that an algorithm can make him happier and healthier than his own instincts.
In his words, AI will soon “autocomplete our thoughts” toward optimal living.
The ultimate goal of Don’t Die is exactly that — don’t die. Johnson makes no secret that he’s striving for physical immortality through science.
Johnson said he’s done more than Christ himself in helping defeat death.
That shocking boast, posted by Johnson on social media in 2023, encapsulates the techno-messianism at play.
The tech mogul genuinely suggests he’s making more headway conquering biological death than Jesus Christ did — and with a brashness that treats the Resurrection as a failed proof of concept.
It’s a claim born of Silicon Valley hubris, the kind Pope Leo has confronted before. Recall that last November, venture capitalist Marc Andreessen sneered at Leo’s call for ethical AI — only to delete his post after public backlash.
Johnson was extraordinarily honest with Douthat about the idea behind it: “We said we will make my body the philosophy.” He sees himself as trillions of cells to be measured. The blood draws, scans, and numbers are all aimed at slowing or reversing aging.
This morning, Pope Leo XIV celebrated Mass at Castel Gandolfo for the Assumption. Aging and dying are sacred parts of life, he argued, and in fact, sacramental.
Then Leo answered Johnson, almost line by line.
