During his recent apostolic trip to Cameroon, the Pope called on Catholic university students from central Africa to be \u2018pioneers of a new humanism in the context of the digital revolution.\u2019<\/p>\n
With the publication of his first encyclical just around the corner, Pope Leo XIV is poised to add his voice to the Church\u2019s tradition of social teaching, reflecting on what it means to be human in the midst of a digital revolution.<\/p>\n
According to reports, the encyclical \u2014 a papal letter to the Church \u2014 will be called Magnifica Humanitas, Latin for \u201cMagnificent Humanity.\u201d It is expected to present the Pope\u2019s moral guidance on how to approach artificial intelligence. <\/p>\n
As Leo himself indicated in the first days of his pontificate, he will follow in the steps of his predecessor and namesake, Pope Leo XIII, whose encyclical Rerum Novarum, \u201cOf New Things,\u201d is widely considered the first in a long line of social encyclicals produced in the modern era of the papacy.<\/p>\n
Catholic social teaching from the late 19th century to today is the Church\u2019s attempt \u201cto articulate itself in constantly new and evolving conditions,\u201d said Anna Rowlands, a theologian and professor of Catholic social thought at Durham University in the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n
Catholic social teaching is like a river, with \u201cits own integrity and dynamism \u2026 changed partly by the obstacles that it hits,\u201d she told the Register. With his forthcoming encyclical, \u201cPope Leo is jumping into that stream,\u201d and \u201cAI is obviously one of those things that\u2019s \u2026 on the riverbed of the moment now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Catholic Social Tradition<\/p>\n
Pope Leo XIII issued Rerum Novarum, his encyclical letter on capital and labor, on May 15, 1891.<\/p>\n
Leo XIII\u2019s letter asks, \u201cHow can we draw from that deep well [of the tradition of the Church] to offer something which is living water for an industrial, modern age?\u201d said Rowlands, who is also a member of the Vatican\u2019s Dicastery for Integral Human Development.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, in that moment, the Church attempts basically to draw down that vision of the Gospel into a set of principles,\u201d she explained. \u201cAnd of course, those [principles] evolve over time. \u2026 They don\u2019t arrive just completely packaged in 1891 in a way that we receive them now; It\u2019s a genuinely dynamic unfolding.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the intervening 135 years, Leo XIII and his nine successors have released a subsequent 65 encyclicals, many of them focused on social challenges of their time: from war to birth control to the environmental crisis.<\/p>\n
With Catholic social teaching, the Church seeks to present the principles of \u201chuman dignity, the common good, solidarity, subsidiarity, the universal destination of goods, the preferential option for the poor and for the earth\u201d in a way that responds to the issues of the times, she said.<\/p>\n
Catholic social teaching is \u201cnot just theory,\u201d Rowlands said. \u201cThis is speaking of the witness and the mission of the Church for the salvation of all souls who are embedded in the world. So this is about the story of the creation of the world, of the purpose of human beings and the destiny of human beings.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Rerum Novarum, Leo XIII presents a different story about \u201cwhat it means to be human than the dominant storylines of liberalism, socialism, communism, fascism, etc.,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s one of the reasons why I think Rerum Novarum does hit in a genuinely different way,\u201d she said, \u201ceven if it\u2019s repeating some of the themes that already would have been present in other forms of social action and analysis of the time. \u2026 It doesn\u2019t give in to any of those \u2018isms.\u2019 It is its own story, rooted in the story of the Gospels, rooted in the Person of Jesus Christ in that revelation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rowlands underlined that the model of \u201cMagnificent Humanity,\u201d as Leo XIV\u2019s forthcoming encyclical might be named, is Jesus Christ. He is the Church\u2019s example of what it means to carry out \u201csocial justice,\u201d a view of social justice that \u201cdoes not equate easily to a secular, liberal narrative of social justice.\u201d <\/p>\n
The new encyclical, she said, may help show what \u201csocial justice\u201d is from the Catholic perspective, \u201cwhere we understand what we might have in common with other people who genuinely believe in a convinced humanism, but also the things that make us different, that mark out the particularity of a Christian path.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking during an apostolic trip to Cameroon in April, the Pope called Catholic university students from central Africa to \u201cnot be afraid of \u2018new things\u2019\u201d and to be \u201cpioneers of a new humanism in the context of the digital revolution.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLike every great historical transformation, this too calls not only for technical competence, but also for a humanistic formation,\u201d he said at the Catholic University of Central Africa on April 17.<\/p>\n
Humanism, historically, \u201cis a movement looking at the emergence and the use of literature, art, history and philosophy to reflect on the human person made in the image and likeness of God,\u201d but in its subsequent development, it \u201crejected the Christian project,\u201d Matthew Bunson, vice president and editorial director of EWTN News, told the Register. <\/p>\n
A historian and theologian, Bunson explained, \u201cSecular humanism is what we are grappling with today \u2026 moving beyond an understanding of the person as made in the image and likeness of God and more toward a self-understanding of the person,\u201d favoring progress and technological development over human dignity.<\/p>\n
This is where the transhumanism and posthumanism movements emerge; in the former, its proponents hope to eliminate pain, suffering and death by the perpetual advancement of the human body; and in the latter, its advocates explore the merging of humans and machines, challenging the superiority of the human person and its central position in society.<\/p>\n
Such viewpoints \u201crender inoperative, and in their view, antiquated, any sense of a soul, anything that would be transcendent, non-material,\u201d Bunson explained. <\/p>\n
Transcendence and the Popes<\/p>\n
Rowlands said refusal to acknowledge transcendence is the source of the uprootedness of cultures in our time, \u201cbecause the modern era cuts itself off from that source of transcendence as an overt part of the public conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said the Catholic Church insists that \u201cthinking through transcendence is the basis for a rightly ordered humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe thing that connects every single encyclical is the insistence that social crises have at their root a refusal of transcendence,\u201d she said. \u201cSo for every crisis that we have faced, from Rerum Novarum to the contemporary day, each pope has pointed out that the imbalances and the failures of human relationship that structure those moments of crisis \u2014 whether it\u2019s the Cuban Missile Crisis, whether it\u2019s the environmental crisis, whether it\u2019s the stuff that Leo XIII was writing about \u2014 it\u2019s the active refusal of transcendence.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTo accept that we are creatures of a Creator, that we are bound to each other in relationships of mutual entrustment and responsibility, and that we necessarily have to \u2026 give God, God\u2019s due and to ensure that our neighbor has their due\u201d \u2014 the definition of justice.<\/p>\n
Leo XIV Responds to the AI Revolution<\/p>\n
Bunson said Pope Leo XIV\u2019s idea of a \u201cnew humanism\u201d wants to renew appreciation for the transcendent and said \u201cthat progress is subordinate to human dignity and the Christian understanding of the human being.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Pope is aware of trans- and posthumanism and the extent to which it is informing a lot of influential tech figures,\u201d said Legionary Father Michael Baggot, a theology professor and expert in transhumanism and the ethics of emerging technologies, in an interview with the Register.<\/p>\n
Pope Leo XIV, he said, sees \u201cthe need to represent in all of its fullness and beauty a Christian humanism that says \u2018Yes\u2019 to technological development, but not to a reckless accelerationalism that would sacrifice the weak, the frail, the vulnerable for the sake of potentially developing a kind of superior species, be that an enhanced human species or even a non-human, post-human artificial-intelligence successor.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe generative AI revolution and various chatbots,\u201d Father Baggot explained, \u201chave accelerated and intensified a technological absorption \u2026 that has interfered with deep conversation, with friendships, with appreciation for people of other backgrounds or interests or political viewpoints.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Pope is calling us to recover these kinds of deep interactions and to appreciate the value of in-person experiences, to appreciate the value of working with our hands, contemplating nature, playing musical instruments, writing and reading books, engaging in deep conversations, dancing\u201d and \u201cin-person worship in community,\u201d the priest said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe see so many simulations of human activities that until recently were very difficult for most people to imagine. So the Pope is sensitive to that and basically does not want us to settle for an imitation,\u201d he said. The renewed humanism of Leo XIV \u201cutilizes those [AI] tools for research, for information, for streamlining administrative tasks, but will always turn back to in-person, embodied, community worship.\u201d<\/p>\n
This article was originally published by NCRegister.<\/p>\n