Pathways, May 2026: On “Magnifica Humanitas”
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Welcome back to GenMod’s Pathways section. It’s encyclical time! Here at GenMod, we’ve been thinking about the genealogical components of Leo XIV’s Magnifica Humanitas and combing through commentary from the past week to pick out the very best work responding to the encyclical. Let’s get into it!
Magnifica humanitas is no small document, coming in at about 42,000 words. And while several commentators cited below express frustration with this, we should ask whether the attention required to work through a document of this length is part of the point. The topics at hand—the human person and her inviolable dignity and worth, the social doctrine of the Church, and the threats to the human person posed by the technological revolution ushered in by AI—simply demand this kind of in-depth, richly historical, theological, and anthropological treatment. And while a lengthy treatise of any kind will not appeal to many—perhaps, we should say, because our attention spans have shortened due to these very same technologies!—one can’t help but wonder if a slightly more demanding encyclical is exactly what is necessary to meet this moment.
The encyclical is lengthened by its first two chapters—which, as Joshua P. Hochschild notes, make the contribution of synthesizing and systematizing the last 135 years of Catholic social teaching. To some, this will seem an unnecessary detour. They will say: “This is the AI encyclical; tell us what to do about AI.” But Leo is right to take a more circuitous route, building a genealogy of Catholic Social Teaching as it has unfolded from Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum (1891), through the papacies of the twentieth century, and most recently across the encyclicals of John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis. What results are not edicts from on high about what to do or not do about AI but a process of “shared discernment” that conceptualizes the Church as encountering, accompanying, and guiding humanity dialogically through history. And while Francis is the most cited in the document, what Leo theorizes is a fundamental, unfolding unity across Church history. In our divided times, such a demonstration of a dynamic unity across papacies too often simplistically labeled conservative or progressive is valuable and necessary.
There is a second genealogical inheritance to be traced in the encyclical. As Brendan Towell observes Leo XIV is “heir to two traditions at once: to Leo XIII’s concern for the social upheavals of modernity and to St. Augustine’s concern for the formation of the human heart.” In The City of God (written in the 5th century AD), Augustine famously described the unfolding of human history as a battle between the City of Man or “earthly city” and the City of God or “heavenly city,” a battle the City of God eventually wins: “Two loves have built two cities: the earthly city, the love of self even to the contempt of God; the heavenly city, the love of God even to the contempt of self.” While Augustine was responding to his immediate circumstances—the decline of the Roman Empire—this set of images is particularly apt for the moment we inhabit, marked as it is by a deep pessimism about society, civilization, and the human future.
Leo synthesizes the two cities from Augustine with two ancient cities from the Bible: the construction of Babel and the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem under the guidance of the prophet Nehemiah. Through the archetypes of the two cities, Leo connects Augustine’s broad view of human history to the particular question of technological change. For Leo, Babel “reveals the limits of any effort that, however grandiose, arises from self-affirmation, sacrifices human dignity for efficiency and aspires to reach heaven without God’s blessing” (7), while Jerusalem “rediscovers…the harmony that arises when all persons assume their own role and recognize that their strength comes from the Lord” (8). Babel is AI built by a few to dominate the many and transcend the human condition, while the rebuilt Jerusalem is technology directed and shaped by each person in the community, each of whom becomes more fully human through their unique form of participation in the reconstruction of the city. The City of Man, the City of God.
Last, two genealogies concerning Leo’s view of the Church and his innovation on a principle of social teaching. Francis memorably described the Church as a “field hospital” in 2013, an image that reflected the brokenness of humanity and the Church, and the need for triage. Of course, many other images of the Church have accumulated over the millenia: the Barque of Peter, Mother Church, the Bride of Christ, the Moon reflecting the Sun. More recently, for John Paul II, the Church was a “pilgrim Church,” for John XXIII, the Church needed to open its windows to the modern world. But for Leo XIV, again drawing on the “two cities” imagery from the Bible and Augustine, the Church is a construction site. This suggests not so much a sense of urgency as a need for careful, deliberate action that ensures the foundation is built properly. “The spirituality I wish to commend,” writes Leo, “is that of the ‘wise architect’ who, driven by hope for the Kingdom of God, is committed to building the world for the common good” (236). The time to build is now.
One of the most interesting twists in the encyclical is Leo’s language of “digital environments.” Here, Leo XIV draws on the environmental emphasis of his predecessor, Francis, and Catholic social teaching’s principle of the “universal destination of goods,” but reforms these to respond to the technological revolution. Antonio Spadaro writes about this unfolding in Commonweal:
Among the goods universally destined for all, Leo XIV writes, we must now include patents, algorithms, digital platforms, technological infrastructure, and data. The pope applies to the economy of algorithms the same logic Catholic tradition has always applied to the land: when such goods remain concentrated in a few hands, the gap between the included and the excluded widens. No pontifical document had ever stated with such clarity that data are goods whose distribution is a matter of justice, not of the market.
It’s a stunning extension of this principle of social teaching—and it leads to more profound questions. Does this not suggest that AI, trained on the data of countless humans from both the past and present—who, by the way, did not authorize the usage of their words and data by AI— belongs not to the tech executives but to the human family? Is Leo beginning to theorize a more radical view of ownership and intellectual property?
Many questions remain—and we’ll see more of those below—but what is not in question is Leo’s defense of humanity—magnificent humanity!—in an era when we seem to be anything but. He writes, “In the era of artificial intelligence, when human dignity is threatened by new forms of dehumanization, ours is the pressing duty to remain profoundly human. We must lovingly safeguard the grandeur of humanity bestowed upon us and revealed in its fullness in Christ, the splendor of which no machine can ever replace” (15). To be profoundly human. Amen.
On to the commentary! Below, I’ll list out some of the best work I’ve read on the encyclical. See what you think!
Best summaries:
Luke Coppen’s “Reader’s Guide” to the encyclical in The Pillar is a faithful summary of Leo’s thought. But by far the most concise and rich synopsis comes from Antonio Spadaro.
Best commentaries:
Joshua P. Hochschild's article in First Things does a tremendous job of describing the encyclical’s contribution to Catholic Social Teaching:
Magnifica Humanitas was anticipated as ‘the AI encyclical.’ But it is really an encyclical that uses AI as an occasion to characterize the Church and its role in the world. Just as Rerum Novarum was not only about labor (and capital and socialist ideology) but founded social teaching as a mode of engaging the world, Magnifica Humanitas is not only about AI (and digital technology and transhumanist ideology); it refounds and ratifies social teaching as a primary mode of the Church’s engagement with the world…. [I]n its very structure, Magnifica Humanitas offers itself as a theory of social doctrine and a hermeneutic key to Vatican II.
It’s a must read.
See Nitish Pahwa at Slate for a smart business and tech response that understands the forces Leo is striving to balance: “Instead of blanket-dismissing tech entrepreneurs… Pope Leo has sought a careful, studied, moral middle ground: one that encourages technological progress but upholds human dignity above all. It’s not a document made for our simplified, summary-laden times.” Some have also critiqued Leo for having a tech executive—Anthropic co-founder Chris Olah—present at the encyclical's introductory ceremony. But we should realize that in doing this, Leo is not just “talking the talk” of dialogue with society, but “walking the walk,” as it were. And from a strategic viewpoint, engaging in dialogue with the tech sector provides the Church with the ability to influence the formation of these technologies in a way that closing itself off to them would not.
I got a lot from this exchange in The Pillar between theologians and philosophers like Charlie Camosy, Joe Vukov, Catherine Moon, Brian Boyd, and Tim Hwang. A few quick notes from this one:
Per the point above, we should keep in mind the “then-cutting edge involvement of the Papacy in astronomy and the founding of the Vatican Observatory in 1774” as a model for how the Vatican might engage AI.
There’s a great back and forth between Camosy and Vukov about what exactly AI is, focusing on a potential tension in paragraphs 98 and 99 of the encyclical.
And last, Camosy asks an important question: “[W]here is the discussion of sexual and reproductive ethics as they relate to AI and transhumanism?”
Tomer Periscos’s essay in Persuasion focuses on how humanity’s creation in the image of God in Genesis shaped the “grammar of universal humanism,” though he notes that
The origins of these ideals and institutions are often forgotten, if not actively denied. But the AI debate seems to be forcing us to rediscover the theological genealogy of human dignity. The image of God is summoned again, not against empires, aristocracies, or racial hierarchies, but against the reduction of the human being to computation and performance… What is striking is not that the Pope cites Genesis. It is that Genesis still describes the problem better than much of our technological vocabulary is capable of doing.
“The theological genealogy of human dignity” is exactly right.
Best critiques:
Yuval Levin in The New Atlantis suggests that the Pope might have taken a different approach to AI by “ground[ing] his warnings in the danger of idolatry” and finds that “Magnifica Humanitas is too dismissive of what this power [AI] involves, what these technologies are likely to be capable of, and what that will mean for how we understand ourselves.” The article concludes with a particularly discerning—even startling —interpretation of Psalm 115.
In the New York Times, Matthew Walther, editor of The Lamp, critiques Leo for an overly optimistic vision of AI. He writes: “Despite voicing concerns about the dangers that A.I. poses to humanity, the encyclical nonetheless seems to envision a world in which it is simply a tool, rather than an evil that all people should reject.” Why AI is “an evil” Walther does not tell us. I would be sincerely open to this argument and would love to know because it certainly squares with my moral intuition. And while he points to the many concerns and considerations we should have with this technology, I suspect the Pope is right to seek a more nuanced, less alarmist position that has definite continuities with Leo XIII’s balanced treatment of capitalism and socialism in Rerum Novarum. In his own publication, The Lamp, Walther writes,
How could Magnifica humanitas have been better? My wife points out that it does not seem to have occurred to Leo or anyone else involved in the drafting to use this opportunity to ban or restrict the use of A.I. in Catholic schools or to institute a standard “bluebook” policy, which seems like a no-brainer.
I very much agree that Catholic schools—all places of learning—should prohibit AI. But the first two chapters of the encyclical on Catholic social teaching, particularly its focus on subsidiarity, provides a cogent response for why a blanket ban in Catholic schools is not the way forward. Parents and schools should absolutely implement bans and restrictions—and in coming from them, according to the principle of subsidiarity, they uphold human dignity and the common good, enabling every person to “take ownership of his or her own life and to contribute to the formation of society” (68). Through this approach, bans and restrictions will be more effective, better shaped, and result in deeper involvement from parents and families. While Walther writes with disappointment that this means that “We have to do it ourselves,” the point of Leo’s image of the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem is that everyone must be involved. The act of rebuilding does not merely reconstruct the city but actually reshapes the persons participating in that project.
Last, John P. Slattery makes two valid critiques in Commonweal: First, “Leo makes no distinction between generative and nongenerative AI systems. An AI system made to play chess does not carry the same ethical weight as Gemini’s new video-creation AI, which carries different weight than Palantir’s Project Maven.” Fair enough—this is the nuance that some other critiques of AI lack. Second, “There is, more importantly, no mention of the way that generative AI preys on humanity’s vast troves of art and literature to fuel its newest models without paying or crediting artists. Leo does mention specific art and artists—Gandalf even gets a line (213)—but the threats to art and creativity that have dominated so much of our conversation about AI are never addressed.” As a lover of the arts, it does seem that there could have been more to this effect—along with the broader issue of intellectual property and AI.
Worst takes:
I am already tired of reading these twin critiques: “Why did he apologize for the Church’s historical connections to slavery again?” and “Why was this relevant to AI in the first place?” Slavery is brought up in connection with emerging forms of dehumanizing labor that Leo demonstrates to be entangled with AI and other digital technologies in paragraphs 173-175, including content moderation, model training, and human trafficking. Why apologize for slavery once again? I think it’s fairly simple: if the Church is to have any authority or credibility on the topic of slavery today, you’d better acknowledge the Church’s past.
I’m truly not sure whether anyone from the Editorial Board at the Wall Street Journal read the encyclical:
When it comes to AI, his encyclical mostly recites the most pessimistic prophecies. He largely dismisses AI’s potential benefits, such as faster and less expensive drug development and medical cures. His call for more government regulation of AI echoes opponents of capitalism like Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Likening the Pope’s critiques of capitalism to Bernie and AOC is to commit the same kind of category error that President Trump did when he complained that Leo was “weak on crime.” They go on to write:
Most fanciful is the pope’s claim that the mandarins at the United Nations should be entrusted with overseeing AI. He says they '“are essential instruments for promoting a civilization of love, for they can foster dialogue among nations and promote the peaceful resolution of conflicts.” This is truly the triumph of hope over experience.
But this is important because the Pope recognizes that in recent years power has shifted from nations to private companies, which can make decisions without public recourse. Part of what Leo is theorizing here is a complex tension and balance between states and capital, and right now, for a whole host of reasons (including AI), capital’s power is growing rapidly. This is where Leo looks to the principle of subsidiarity. As Spadaro explains, in Magnifica Humanitas,
the principle of subsidiarity is turned upside down. In classical Catholic social doctrine, subsidiarity protects intermediate bodies from the encroachment of the state. In the digital context, the power that absorbs competencies and decision-making capacity is no longer the state but corporations and platforms, which define conditions of access, rules of visibility, and economic opportunities. Subsidiarity thus becomes a critical instrument against private technological monopoly.
Most Speculative take:
The encyclical references J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, among a broad range of cultural referents that will be familiar to most people, including Spielberg’s Schindler’s List, Picasso’s Guernica, and Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning. Some, like John Grosso, see in the Tolkien reference a larger story, particularly considering tech executive Peter Thiel’s use of objects from Tolkien’s world (Palantir, Anduril, etc.) as names for his AI-powered companies (see our recent essay series on Thiel by the Girard scholar Anthony Bartlett, part 1 and part 2). Let the Tolkien-Thiel-Vatican speculation begin!
See you next month!
