The first encyclical of the first American pope, Magnifica Humanitas, concerns one of the most, if not the most, pressing social issues of our time: artificial intelligence. While the AI boom began around 2022, the tech has, by all appearances, accelerated in an astounding way in the year since Pope Leo XIV’s election. It seems to be everywhere now—from Superbowl ads to grad speeches—and it seems to be all anyone can talk about.
So there will be no shortage of commentary, and commentary on the commentary, on the encyclical. From the memorable comparison of the Babel and Jerusalem “construction sites”—sure to become one of the Leonine catchphrases—to the references spanning Plato to Tolkien, there’s a lot to analyze.
But there’s a deeper question that many, both Catholic and non-Catholic, will be asking, if only unconsciously: Should popes be talking about something like AI at all? The Catholic Church, after all, is ultimately in the business of saving souls. Why not leave the analysis of social issues to the experts?
Pope Leo, as if already anticipating the charge, has offered his own masterful answer in Magnifica Humanitas. In fact, he even devotes the first two chapters—almost half the document—to an overview of Catholic social teaching: what it is, where it came from, and why it matters. It seems that in answering the question concerning AI, Leo is equally determined to answer this deeper question concerning society itself.
Debate over the Church’s involvement in social and political life, of course, is nothing new. (A two-thousand-year-old institution whose history of deep thought spans both the Roman Empire and AI can scarcely be surprised by much of anything.) But it does take on a new intensity with the advent and development of Catholic social teaching over the past few centuries.
There’s a deeper question that many, both Catholic and non-Catholic, will be asking, if only unconsciously: Should popes be talking about something like AI at all?
The most recent example was Leo’s immediate predecessor, Pope Francis. Perceived by many both inside and outside of the Church as being a little too socially minded, Francis issued Laudato Si’, his encyclical “on care for our common home,” in 2015. A common criticism focused not so much on the particularities of the document as on its very existence. Why is the pope going on about saving the planet? Shouldn’t he be focusing on saving souls instead?
But this charge stretches all the way back to Leo’s nominal predecessor, the man who inaugurated modern Catholic social teaching: Leo XIII. In the introduction to Magnifica Humanitas, Leo XIV writes, “When some objected that the Church should not waste energy on worldly matters, but instead focus on communicating the message of eternal life, Leo XIII responded with realism and wisdom, saying that the proclamation of the Gospel cannot overlook the concrete lives of people. Many decades have passed since then, and the Magisterium, pastors, theologians and faithful have continued to reflect on social issues in the light of the Gospel” (3).
Much of the lengthy Magnifica Humanitas is a rehearsing of those decades of development. Leo looks at contributions to the Church’s social teaching not only from Leo XIII and Francis, but also from various popes in between, including Pius XI, Pius XII, John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI. And he reflects—as he continues to do in his weekly General Audiences—on the documents of the Second Vatican Council.
But what about the why of Catholic social teaching? How does the Church justify expending so much energy on social and political questions?
Leo’s answer, offered right at the outset, is Christ: “the Incarnate God” to whom “we Christians lift our eyes” (1). Jesus is the Word made flesh—both fully divine and fully human—and this mystery of the incarnation, he writes in the conclusion, is “at the heart of everything” (231).
This doctrine gives Christians a dual vision. If Christ is both divine and human, then Christ’s Church must be about the business of both God and humanity—and, by extension, both God’s “place” of heaven and man’s place of earth. The Christian faith is “a light capable of uniting heaven and earth” (33), calling the world to build that city “in which God and humanity dwell together” (1). The Church looks not to heaven alone (which amounts to Gnostic escapism), nor to earth alone (amounting to secular utopianism), but to both, that God’s will might be done in the latter as it is in the former (231).
Thus, the concrete realities of earth—history, society, ecology, technology—demand our care and attention. In fact, “there is no moment or human situation that is not worthy of God” (232), and “nothing will be lost that is authentically human” (233). Those earthly realities have been claimed for heaven; they’re intimately bound up with what God began in the world through his Son and what he intends to complete at the end of time: “The Father has decreed to bring all things, those in heaven and those on earth, back to Christ, the one Head (see Eph 1:10)” (233). In the meantime, the Spirit is at work to “create a new story here below” (240) and to build a “civilization of love.”
Doesn’t this mean that we start focusing on man and the world to the point of excluding, or at least making secondary, God and eternity? Don’t we risk falling for the secularist utopias of Babel?
Not if Christ remains in first place, orienting all things (Col 1:18). One document from Vatican II becomes a special reference point for Leo: Gaudium et Spes, Vatican II’s Pastoral Constitution on the Church’s relationship with the modern world. The pope references this document no less than eleven times, but in the first paragraph, and again later (49), a special prominence is given to those words of paragraph 22 so beloved by Pope St. John Paul II: It is “only in the mystery of the Word made flesh that the mystery of humanity truly becomes clear” (1). Outside of Christ, there’s no salvation (Acts 4:12), and our lives are doomed to frustration and frenzy. But Jesus not only offers us rescue from death but authentic human life: By rising as the first fruits of the dead, ascending into divine glory, and inviting us to follow him, Jesus makes us fully real, fully intelligible, and fully alive.
This is the bedrock foundation, Leo is insisting, of Catholic social teaching. Just as Christ entered our history by taking on human flesh (49), the Church enters history and takes on the “flesh” of the social problems of the day. It puts those high moral principles outlined by Leo—human dignity, the common good, the universal destinations of goods, subsidiarity, solidarity, social justice—into practice. But it remains, always, a “faith-based interpretation of history” (45).
And Catholic social teaching does this, Leo emphasizes, not “to supplant the responsibilities of politics or institutions,” but to offer itself “as a foundation for collective discernment” (24). It’s a Church that “walks alongside humanity, recognizing the autonomy of earthly realities and the distinction between ecclesial and political communities” (18). Indeed, before it brings its inner dynamics to bear on the world, it first strives to make itself “incarnate in ecclesial life” (89); the society of the Church has to practice what it preaches.
There’s plenty here to stir the pot, unsettling the consciences of both Silicon Valley and DC and inspiring people of any line of work to take action.
In the film On the Waterfront, a Catholic priest named Fr. Barry, played by Karl Malden, stands by a slain dock worker, encouraging the men there to stand up to the local mob boss. One man throws rotten fruit at the priest, shouting, “Go back to your church, Father!” The priest gestures at the slain man and responds, “Boys, this is my Church! And if you don’t think Christ is down here on the waterfront, you’ve got another guess coming.” Another man throws again—this time a direct hit: “Get off the dock, Father!”
Go back to your church. Get off the dock. This always has been, and always will be, the response of some sectors whenever the Church speaks out on social issues—particularly those most threatened by its calls for legal restrictions, public oversight, moral responsibility, and spiritual wisdom.
And while Pope Leo XIV’s reflections on AI (expanding, in the fourth chapter, into the subject of warfare) are broad and generalized, there’s plenty here to stir the pot, unsettling the consciences of both Silicon Valley and DC and inspiring people of any line of work to take action. Consider, on the subject of AI-driven layoffs, this practical suggestion: “Every introduction of automation and AI should be accompanied by verifiable measures to protect the employment, retraining and participation of workers” (156). Or, for stressed parents, refer to the pope’s encouraging lines earlier in the chapter: “It is difficult for parents by themselves to resist the influence of business models that monetize attention and time. Therefore, it is essential to form an alliance among policy-makers, educational institutions and families that is capable of concretely supporting adults in this task. Far-sighted public policies are needed to oppose the immediate interests of platforms—concentrated in a few hands—when they conflict with the wellbeing of minors” (142).
Like Fr. Barry, the popes can—and must—keep teaching socially. Pope Leo XIV has spent his first year as pope proclaiming the Gospel, calling, in a special way, for unity in the Church. But he now also calls upon men and women “to enter the construction sites of history—research laboratories, tech companies, schools, the media, institutions and local communities—in order to rebuild what has collapsed and protect what is threatened” (241).
How beautifully concrete and historical—just like the Incarnate God.