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One hundred and thirty-five years after Rerum novarum, Pope Leo XIV presents the Church and the world with a new social encyclical: Magnifica Humanitas. The text addresses the defining issue of our time: what does it mean to safeguard human dignity in the age of artificial intelligence?
The encyclical unfolds like an “inverted pyramid”: solid in its principles and open to contemporary challenges. After clarifying that the Church’s social doctrine “is not a handbook of principles and rules to be applied, but a path of communal discernment” (no. 27), the Pope gets to the heart of the matter: the relationship between technology, power, and our humanity.
The third chapter, Technology and Dominion: The Greatness of the Human Person in the Face of the Promises of AI, is the focal point of the encyclical. The encyclical, in fact, is not about AI but is written in the age of AI. Here, Leo XIV interprets the digital revolution not merely as a technological change, but as an anthropological, political, and spiritual transformation.

The Enigmatic Questions of the Encyclical

The entire document is permeated by radical questions: Is the human person at risk of being reduced to a function, a data point, or a service? Does technological progress truly coincide with human progress? Who governs algorithms, data, and platforms today?
The encyclical does not demonize technology, but compels us to question the vision of humanity that inspires it. For this reason, Leo XIV insists on discernment: “More powerful does not necessarily mean better” (no. 93). But this inner discernment can be carried out only by the person, not by the machine.
Babel or Jerusalem: what kind of civilization do we want to build?

The biblical image that runs through the encyclical is powerful: on one hand, the Tower of Babel, a symbol of a project founded on domination and self-sufficiency; on the other, the Jerusalem rebuilt by Nehemiah, a sign of shared responsibility. “We are called to ask ourselves about the great construction site of our age: what are we building?” (no. 90).
At Babel, unity arises from uniformity and the desire to “make a name for oneself”; in Nehemiah’s time, however, in Jerusalem, reconstruction takes shape through listening, shared responsibility, and cooperation. Everyone contributed their own brick to rebuild the city.

Technology, therefore, is never neutral. It can become a tool for fraternity or for control. For this reason, the Pope invites believers to choose “which project to work on and in what manner” in order to safeguard “the magnificent humanity that has been given to us as a gift” (no. 90).

The Technocratic Paradigm and the New Digital Emperors

The text appears to be an extension of the encyclicals Fratelli Tutti and Laudato si’; Leo XIV denounces the “technocratic paradigm”—that is, the tendency to allow “the logic of efficiency, control, and profit to govern personal, social, and economic choices on its own” (no. 92).

The Pope is forced to admit that today control over digital platforms, data, and technological infrastructure is concentrated in the hands of a few global private entities. “When power of this magnitude is concentrated in a few hands, it tends to become opaque and escape public oversight” (no. 95).

They are the new “digital emperors,” capable of steering the economy, communication, and democratic processes. The technological issue thus becomes an eminently political one: those who possess data and algorithms today exercise a new form of sovereignty that transcends nation-states. Indeed, it influences them and risks hollowing them out from within. We confuse artificial intelligence with a person, and those who manage it do so not only by managing machines but also by managing people. To delegate our thinking to machines is to surrender our dignity to them.

Technology is not neutral

One of the encyclical’s strongest points is the assertion that “technology […] is not neutral, because it takes on the face of those who conceive, finance, regulate, and use it.”
Every innovation embodies an anthropological vision and a hierarchy of values. Even algorithms that appear objective reflect cultural, economic, and political criteria.

For this reason, the Pope warns against the risk of entrusting delicate decisions—work, credit, reputation, access to services—to automated systems incapable of mercy and moral responsibility.

Knowledge is always and only human; for the Jesuit Bernard Lonergan, four elements are necessary to experience it that a machine cannot guarantee. These are experience, understanding, judgment, and decision. No AI data guarantees this process.

Artificial intelligence is not human intelligence
One of the most incisive passages in the chapter concerns the distinction between artificial intelligence and the human person. Leo XIV clarifies that AI systems “mimic certain functions of human intelligence,” but do not possess experience, moral conscience, or the capacity to love or suffer. “They can simulate empathy or understanding, but they do not understand what they produce, because they do not inhabit the affective, relational, and spiritual horizon in which the human being becomes wise” (no. 99).

For the Pope, the risk is not merely technical, but cultural. Delegating everything to machines annihilates personal judgment, creativity, and even the authentic desire for the other: “When speech is simulated, it does not build a relationship, but a semblance of one” (no. 100).

Thus, in an ecosystem dominated by social networks and digital platforms, truth is defined as a “common good.” The Pope proposes an “ecology of communication” capable of safeguarding language, countering polarization, and rebuilding trust. The challenge concerns not only content but also the modes of communication: the “how” and the “for whom” are now inseparable from the “what.”

Disarming AI
At the heart of the chapter lies the key word of the pontificate: “disarming.” “Disarming AI means freeing it from the logic of armed competition, which today is no longer merely military but also economic and cognitive” (no. 110).
This does not mean rejecting technology, but preventing it from becoming an instrument of domination. For this reason, Leo XIV calls for international rules, transparency, political accountability, and democratic oversight. “It is not enough to invoke ethics in general terms: we need adequate legal frameworks, independent oversight, and user education” (no. 106). Nuclear disarmament remains a priority for the Church, even if it is not sufficient on its own; for the Pope, it is necessary to rebuild, “repair bonds, and reawaken hope in the future,” stated Leo XIV.

The goal, then, is to promote a true digital ecology, in which data is not considered the absolute property of a few, but rather a good to be safeguarded according to the logic of the common good and the universal destination of goods.

For this reason, the challenges the Pope poses to the world concern the need to safeguard the mind in the search for truth and the meaning of human existence; to preserve inner freedom, so as not to surrender it to forms of collective hypnosis, but to liberate it through silence, study, communal dialogue, and a careful discernment of reality. Truth is always relational.

War, Power, and the Civilization of Love

In the fifth chapter, the Pope denounces the normalization of war within a “culture of power.”
Peace is not described as a mere absence of conflict, but as a positive endeavor founded on justice, international law, and fraternity among peoples. For this reason, Leo XIV criticizes the “false realism” that considers rearmament inevitable and calls for strengthening diplomacy, multilateralism, and international cooperation.

Particularly significant is the proposal of the seven verbs for building the “civilization of love”: to disarm words, to build peace in justice, to take on the perspective of the victims, to cultivate a healthy realism, to revive dialogue, to strengthen diplomacy and multilateralism, to pray, and to hope.

And here too, we must choose to live them out daily.

Remaining Human

Perhaps the most poignant part of the text is the section devoted to human limitations. The Pope warns against any view that reduces human beings to a project to be optimized: “When efficiency becomes the measure of value, human beings are tempted to see themselves as a project to be optimized rather than as creatures called to relationship and communion” (no. 112).

Leo XIV strongly defends fragility, vulnerability, and the capacity for care. “The quality of a civilization is measured not by the power of its means, but by the care it is able to offer” (no. 114).

Against transhumanist and posthumanist narratives, which promise an “enhanced human,” the Pope reminds us that humanity flourishes not by eliminating limits, but by transcending them. “Humanity does not flourish in spite of limits, but often through them” (no. 118).

The Magnificat as a Political Perspective

The encyclical concludes with the Magnificat. Mary becomes the symbol of a perspective capable of interpreting history from below, from the standpoint of the humble, the hungry, and the victims.
In a world that risks becoming accustomed to war, polarization, and the logic of force, the Magnificat reminds us that true power is that of love, which “casts the mighty from their thrones,” lifts up the lowly, and rebuilds just relationships. True politics—suggests Leo XIV—is that which knows how to harmonize with this song.

Between Babel and Jerusalem, between domination and fraternity, between performance and relationship, the future of civilization is at stake today. And the Church, through Magnifica Humanitas, invites the world to choose the path of dignity, shared responsibility, and peace.

But now, what has been handed down as social discernment and as a path must be chosen and lived together.

Article by Father Francesco Occhetta S.J.