Marking the 135th anniversary of Rerum novarum, Pope Leo XIV releases his first encyclical, entitled ‘Magnifica humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence.’ He appeals for the safeguarding of humanity, promotion of truth, dignity of work, social justice, and peace.
“Humanity, created by God in all its grandeur, is today facing a pivotal choice: either to construct a new Tower of Babel or to build the city in which God and humanity dwell together.” The opening words of Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical summarize its underlying reasons and purpose.
Pope Leo XIV has taken up the legacy of his predecessor, writing a social encyclical which addresses one of the principal challenges of the contemporary age: artificial intelligence. Divided into five chapters, Magnifica humanitas has an underlying premise: technology is not “a force antagonistic to humanity” (4), nor is it “inherently evil” (9). However, “technology is never neutral, because it takes on the characteristics of those who devise, finance, regulate, and use it. Therefore, Pope Leo XIV appeals for people to build “for the common good” and to “remain human,” following a courageous mentality of shared responsibility and communion, so that the world “will come to recognize the human heart as the place where God desires to dwell” (16).
Christians, says Pope Leo, are called to respond to the culture of power by building “the civilization of love” and by choosing whether to feed the logic of force or safeguard peace. He recalls the memory of the saints, “righteous people and the oft-forgotten peacemakers, show us that grace does not magically eliminate conflict, but instead it inspires active resistance to evil and an astonishing creativity in doing good” (211). The Pope indicates five paths of responsibility, which include disarming words by speaking the truth; building
peace in justice; adopting the perspective of victims by taking a stand, because there are conflicts in which “it is unjust to remain neutral”; cultivating “a healthy realism” that seeks practicable paths of peace through deeds, not only words.
At the conclusion of his first encyclical, Pope Leo XIV invites the faithful to navigate this new technological era in the light of the Gospel, following “a sober yet demanding program of Christian life.” Even in the age of AI, concludes the Pope, “we may bear witness to the grandeur of humanity, in which God has made His dwelling.
https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/encyclicals/documents/20260515-magnifica-humanitas.html
