Discover Magnifica Humanitas

Together for the Common Good

Jul 22, 2026

This is a short introduction to Magnifica Humanitas - Pope Leo XIV’s landmark encyclical on - on Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence. Scroll down for links to a selection of commentaries and resources.

On 15 May 2026, Pope Leo XIV has published his first encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, (the magnificent grandeur of humanity), on the safeguarding of the human person in the age of artificial intelligence. At over 42,000 words, it requires serious engagement, and is addressed not only to Catholics but, in the Pope’s own words, to “all Christians and all men and women of goodwill.”

A deliberate echo, 135 years on

The date and framing are not accidental. In 1891, Pope Leo XIII published Rerum Novarum, the foundational text of Catholic Social Teaching, written in response to the Industrial Revolution. Addressing the exploitation of workers and the concentration of capital, it articulated a distinctive political economy in favour of the human person that avoided the dehumanising tendencies of unchecked capitalism and revolutionary socialism. Leo XIV has chosen his name, and the timing of his letter, issued in the 135th anniversary year of Rerum Novarum to signal direct continuity. Where his predecessor confronted the “new things” (rerum novarum) of industrial capitalism, Leo XIV addresses the new things of artificial intelligence. Rather than being drafted in Latin and translated, Magnifica Humanitas was composed and released simultaneously in English and seven other languages — fitting for history’s first American pope, and a signal of his direct engagement with the English speaking world.

Two images: Babel and Jerusalem

Rather than opening with technology, Leo XIV begins with Scripture, setting two building projects side by side. The Tower of Babel (Genesis 11) is a monument to self-sufficiency and uniformity that ends in confusion and scattering. Nehemiah’s rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem (Nehemiah 2–6) is its opposite, where ordinary people - “men, women, priests, artisans, heads of households” - each take responsibility for a section of the wall, listening to one another, working under God. “The primary choice,” Leo XIV writes, “is not between a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to technology, but rather between constructing Babel or rebuilding Jerusalem.” It’s a striking reframe: AI’s question isn’t ultimately technical, but about what kind of common life we choose to build.

Placing the human person at the centre

The heart of the letter insists that human dignity must be the non-negotiable criterion guiding technological progress, not efficiency, profit, or the endless logic of “upgrade.” Leo XIV is blunt about what artificial intelligence is not: “So-called artificial intelligences do not undergo experiences, do not possess a body, do not feel joy or pain, do not mature through relationships and do not know from within what love, work, friendship or responsibility mean... they lack the affective, relational and spiritual perspective through which human beings grow in wisdom.” This is not technophobia; it is a defence of a distinctly Christian anthropology and a challenge to transhumanism (the idea that the human person is matter to be optimised, surpassed, or eventually replaced). “Human dignity,” he writes, “does not depend on a person’s abilities, wealth, or position in life... it is a gift that precedes and transcends each person”, a gift precisely that no machine can claim.

From that foundation flow the letter’s other themes: the dignity of work in an age that threatens mass worklessness; solidarity; subsidiarity - especially the strengthening of families, unions, parishes and local associations as the intermediary institutions needed to constrain unaccountable, often private, concentrations of technological power; and a sober reckoning with how AI is reshaping warfare and politics. Against the “culture of power,” Leo XIV proposes a “civilization of love,” built on justice, dialogue and shared responsibility: “The civilization of love will not arise from a single or spectacular gesture, but from the sum total of small and steadfast acts of fidelity that serve as a bulwark against dehumanization.”

Why this letter, why now

Part of what makes Magnifica Humanitas land so forcefully is timing. The AI revolution is not arriving into a stable culture; it is landing on top of roughly forty years of Western individualism, a “vast social experiment” (to borrow a phrase from From Service to Communion – Exploring Humanitas for Our Time, by Jenny Sinclair) that organised society around the dogma of the unencumbered self underpinned by a false anthropology. As Sinclair asserts, Pope Leo’s encyclical was prompted by the AI revolution, but its core focus is human anthropology - the most pressing issue of our time; Western culture lost touch with what it means to be human long before the arrival of AI forced us to define it. This is the ground expertly prepared by the International Theological Commission’s Quo Vadis, Humanitas? (February 2026), a study of anthropology “in the face of certain scenarios for the future of humanity,” engaging transhumanism and posthumanism directly, forming part of the new encyclical’s critical groundwork.

Read it yourself

At over 200 paragraphs, Magnifica Humanitas repays slow reading, perhaps a few paragraphs a day alongside Nehemiah’s own account of rebuilding. Leo XIV closes with an appeal that could stand as a summary of the whole letter: “Like Nehemiah, let us pray, plan wisely and work perseveringly, placing God at the forefront of our actions and the human person at the center of our choices... the task that stands before us is that of being builders of communion, rather than architects of Babel.” None of us is asked to rebuild the whole wall alone, only to get our hands dirty on our own small section of it. Whether we have a professional interest or are simply trying to think clearly about what AI is doing to us, we are all called to start today.

A limited selection of resources follows: official Vatican materials, commentaries, podcasts, and wider reactions from across the political and religious spectrum.

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