In the discussion about Magnifica humanitas a great deal of concern is expressed about the concentration of power in a small number of companies.
Read more >>Is Polycentricity the Solution to Regulating AI?
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Five Lessons on Human Dignity from Magnifica Humanitas
Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical Magnifica Humanitas has often been presented primarily as the Church’s latest reflection on artificial intelligence. Yet to read it in that context alone would be to miss its deeper significance. The encyclical is fundamentally a reflection on what it means to be human in an age increasingly shaped by technology, biotechnology, digital systems, and new forms of power. Its central call is for humanity “to remain profoundly human” in a technological age (MH, 15).
Read more >>Reparation for sins against life and the need to speak truth to power
This post is the homily by Bishop Peter Collins on the memoria of St. Alphonsus Liguori at the Catholic national shrine and basilica of Our Lady, Walsingham on the occasion of the 42nd pilgrimage of reparation and prayer for the sanctity of life, August 1st 2026.
Read more >>The Brick and the Brother
When Magnifica Humanitas sets the Tower of Babel against Nehemiah’s rebuilt Jerusalem, it reads the two cities as a contrast of spirit. They are also a contrast of economies.
Read more >>Magnifica Humanitas – Disarming Artificial Intelligence
A couple of days before Magnifica Humanitas was published by Pope Leo XIV, the Australian musician and comedian Tim Minchin was interviewed on the radio about artificial intelligence (AI) at the Hay Festival. He spoke with great clarity about how the problem with AI is the lack of any proper idea of intention, and he called for people to be ‘belligerent’ in their reactions to it. At the press conference which launched the encyclical, the Holy Father stressed his call in the text to ‘disarm AI’; while much of what Minchin said chimes with the pope’s insights, the different use of military language is striking.
Read more >>Responding to drug addiction as if people really matter
I received an email from a friend with a specific interest in the Church’s role in responding to Scotland’s addiction crisis. Attached were twelve deceptively simple questions.
Read more >>Magnifica humanitas and the call to holiness
With his social encyclical Magnifica humanitas, Pope Leo XIV has made good the promise contained in the choice of his name. It is a pastoral document that reaches out to non-Christians. It invites all to enter dialogue and engage in discernment. At the same time, it is a document firmly rooted in the Christian revelation of a triune God from whom all wisdom flows. Leo XIV evokes the tower of Babel as a negative example of human pride and to the wise architect Nehemiah who patiently rebuilds Jerusalem as a positive image. He calls for multilateralism and diplomacy rather than for a global political authority as some of his predecessors had done.
Read more >>The Catholic Church and rearmament
On Thursday 14 May, Ascension Day in some countries, Pope Leo XIV visited one of the largest universities in Europe, La Sapienza in Rome. In a wide-ranging address[1] which drew on the restlessness of St Augustine as a young man, at one point the Holy Father said:
Read more >>Magnifica Humanitas – on the “new things” of the 21st century
‘We must lovingly safeguard the grandeur of humanity bestowed upon us and revealed in its fulness in Christ, the splendour of which no machine can ever replace’ (Magnifica Humanitas, 15)
Read more >>AI – constructing Babel or rebuilding Jerusalem?
The title of the encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, affirms the irreplaceable value of human beings, a theme which runs through the document. I was struck by the clarity with which Pope Leo lays out briefly the development of the social doctrine of the Church, emphasising the legitimate but distinct roles of Church and state. This gives a sound foundation for evaluating artificial intelligence (AI), and technology more broadly — how it can be used for good whilst it clearly has some built-in dangers? Pope Leo calls AI ‘A valuable tool that requires vigilance.’ AI presents unique challenges, but the criteria we need to judge how to act in response to those challenges are already to hand, in the form of Catholic social teaching.
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