Today is Trinity Sunday
It’s not every week that a Pope publishes a letter to the Church so I want to write about Pope Leo’s first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas (MH). Here’s where you can read it yourself, or print it as you prefer. https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/encyclicals/documents/20260515-magnifica-humanitas.html
If you don’t know, popes from time to time issue letters to the Church about some topic. Those letters go by various names, like Apostolic Constitutions (the most theologically weighty of these letters), Apostolic Exhortations, Encyclicals, Papal Bulls, and maybe a few others, but we lay folk generally refer to all of them as encyclicals. MH actually is an encyclical.
These kinds of letters tend to be pretty long. MH takes 51 pages to print using my computer and printer. Eight of those pages are end notes so you could print 43 pages and get the entire text.
I think it’s fair to say Leo is concerned about the effect of technology on humanity. He readily acknowledges great things have come from technological advancement but he also makes a strong case that great caution must be used with AI given some of the potential negative consequences on humanity. Keep in mind Leo took his papal name from Leo XIII, who he rightly admires for his role in calling attention to the needs of workers in the face of the Industrial Revolution. That earlier Leo is the author of a document called Rerum Novarum (RN), considered to be the first document about Catholic Social Doctrine. Coincidentally, or not, I’ve been reading RN in weekly bites supplied by Flocknote.
I’m eager to read MH but it will have to wait until later in the summer for me. I encourage you to read it, as well as RN, to draw your own conclusions. Keep in mind that neither these two, nor almost any encyclicals, are infallible teachings. However, as the leader of Christianity I think we owe it to him to read, and seriously consider, what Leo has to say about AI.
To get you started I want to supply some links to comments I’ve found helpful, at least so far.
I watched a live webinar with Fr. Mike Schmitz and Dr. Arthur Brooks discuss MH. Here is a recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFFZM6kL3bY
Here is a good video from Fr. Gregory Pines on it. I also like that he spends some time talking about what an encyclical actually is, and then he talks about MH: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpptgvohfZc
If you prefer something to read here’s an article from the newsletter of the Archdiocese of Chicago: https://www.chicagocatholic.com/web/chicago-catholic//Vatican/-/article/2026/05/25/pope-leo-s-magnifica-humanitas-ai-must-serve-humanity-not-concentrate-power
That should be a good start. Obviously there are a lot of things you could read or watch about MH right now, but these are some I found helpful.
That’s it for now. Thanks for reading.
I hope you have a great week.
Peace, Bob
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