Reading ‘Magnifica Humanitas’: Reflections from a Catholic scientist

This is a guest post by Dr Miro Cafolla. 

The encyclical published in May by Pope Leo XIV, Magnifica Humanitas, stands firmly within the tradition of Catholic social teaching. It continues themes developed by Pope Francis and reaches back even further to Pope Leo XIII’s landmark encyclical Rerum Novarum (1891).

Just as Leo XIII reflected on the social consequences of the Industrial Revolution, so Leo XIV asks what the digital revolution means for human beings today. The Pope argues that artificial intelligence (AI) is among the most important “new things” (res novae) of our age. These technologies are no longer simply tools used by individuals. They increasingly shape how information is distributed, how decisions are made, how economies function, and even how societies understand themselves.

A new Babel, or a rebuilt Jerusalem?

To describe the challenge before us, the Pope employs two powerful biblical images of construction: the Tower of Babel, and the rebuilding of Jerusalem under Nehemiah. Babel represents a project founded on uniformity rather than communion. Humanity seeks to build a city and a tower reaching to heaven through its own power, united by a single language, a single vision, and a single technological ambition. It is ultimately a project of self-affirmation that sacrifices genuine human flourishing in pursuit of efficiency, power, and control.

Nehemiah, by contrast, offers a radically different model. Serving at the court of the Persian king Artaxerxes, Nehemiah learns of Jerusalem’s destruction and responds not with grandiosity but with listening, cooperation, and shared responsibility. He gathers the people, hears their concerns, coordinates their efforts, and rebuilds the city through the contribution of many different individuals and communities. Jerusalem is restored: not through uniformity, but through communion.

For Pope Leo, these two images illuminate the choice facing our technological civilization. We can build a new Babel, where efficiency, profit and control become the dominant values; or we can follow the path of Nehemiah, ensuring that technological progress serves human dignity for every person, and advances social justice and peace. The model of Nehemiah acknowledges the enormous potential of AI, while insisting that technological capability and human progress are not identical.

Image by Scott Blake on Unsplash.

Algorithms are not objective

AI systems can perform remarkable tasks, supporting countless practical applications, but it lacks moral conscience, spiritual perspective, and moral responsibility. This insight may seem obvious, but it has profound implications.

One of the Pope’s concerns is that AI often appears objective, when in reality it reflects human choices. Data selection, model design, training methods, and deployment decisions all involve judgments made by people and institutions. Consequently, ethical responsibility cannot be delegated to algorithms. This is why the encyclical repeatedly insists on accountability and transparency. Decisions that significantly affect human lives must remain understandable, contestable, and subject to meaningful human oversight, such as in the image from Nehemiah, where the decisions behind the reconstruction of Jerusalem were shared and taken together by the community.

Technological revolution…

The Pope is also concerned about the environmental impact of technology, the concentration of technological power, and the rise of modern slavery alongside increasing unemployment associated with new technologies.

Every technological revolution impacts workers and can reshape the labour market. The encyclical, however, stresses that previous technological revolutions were often shaped through a combination of public institutions, governments, universities, and private enterprises. Today much of the development of advanced AI is concentrated within a relatively small number of corporations possessing unprecedented influence over information, communication, and economic life.

Image by Hennie Stander on Unsplash

From a Catholic perspective, this concern reflects the principle of the common good. Human dignity cannot depend upon market forces alone. Technological development must serve society as a whole, especially the most vulnerable. Here, the encyclical draws attention to realities that are often invisible. Many discussions of AI focus on innovation while overlooking the human labour that supports digital systems. Millions of workers around the world perform data labelling, content moderation, and related tasks under difficult conditions and for limited compensation. Similarly, the extraction of minerals necessary for modern technologies frequently involves environmental degradation and exploitative labour practices.

… within a culture of power

Linked to concerns about AI being used for the benefit of a small minority, the encyclical echoes Pope Francis’s warnings about the culture of power, the normalisation of war, and the risks of the military-industrial complex. These risks were famously highlighted by U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower in his 1961 farewell address, a warning that carried particular weight because he was not a pacifist but the former Supreme Allied Commander during the Second World War. Drawing on that experience, Eisenhower warned against the growing entanglement of military institutions, industrial interests, and political decision-making. In continuity with Pope Francis’s condemnation of war and war ideology, Magnifica Humanitas suggests that these dangers have not only become tangible, but have acquired new forms in the age of AI.

The encyclical stresses that the application of AI to warfare is deeply interconnected with the crisis of multilateralism, the normalisation of war, and the rise of post-humanism, where a few individuals are seen as superior while the vast majority are reduced to profiles or data. AI-based systems applied to warfare transform armed conflicts into impersonal events, and distance human beings from the consequences of violence. In this sense, complex geopolitical realities are increasingly reduced to simplistic narratives of national self-interest, such as “us versus them”, while investments in diplomacy and peacebuilding struggle to compete with investments in military technologies. This is one dimension of the encyclical that has received relatively little attention in international media coverage.

The Pope therefore calls for a profound cultural shift. The deepest problem is not technology itself, but the assumption that war is an unavoidable feature of human existence. According to this mentality, conflict is regarded as the normal state of affairs and peace as a temporary interruption. Decisions supported by technological algorithms thus appear driven by calculations of power and profit rather than by ethical principles or concern for human dignity. In such a climate, truth itself risks becoming subordinate to propaganda, media manipulation, and ideological narratives.

Image by Frederick Shaw on Unsplash

AI for human flourishing

Against this backdrop, Pope Leo offers a fundamentally hopeful vision. The usage of AI and new technologies for the flourishing of every human being and for the advancement of peace is possible. However, it will require a common, shared effort based on dialogue, justice, and solidarity. The Pope proposes four practical commitments: fidelity to truth, investment in education, cultivation of relationships, and a commitment to justice and peace.

Within a disarmed language and dialogue, the Pope invites every person to take action. We are not called to be passive observers of technological transformation, but active participants in shaping it. Whether in research laboratories, schools, universities, technology companies, political institutions, or local communities, we are invited to help rebuild what is threatened and strengthen what serves the common good. Hope remains possible precisely because human beings are capable of choosing cooperation over domination and dialogue over violence, just as Nehemiah chose when reconstructing Jerusalem.

Ultimately, however, the encyclical’s horizon extends beyond politics, economics, or technology. Its deepest answer to the challenges of AI lies in the Christian mystery of the incarnation. At a time when transhumanist visions promise salvation through technological enhancement and the overcoming of human limitations, Pope Leo points toward a radically different path. God does not save humanity by abolishing weakness, but by entering into it. The incarnation reveals that human dignity does not depend upon efficiency, intelligence, productivity, or technological power. It is rooted in the fact that God chose to share in our human condition.

The role of scientists

Reading Magnifica Humanitas as a Catholic Christian and as a scientist, it is clear that the encyclical is not merely a document on AI, but a reflection on humanity itself, offering profound insights into truth, freedom, responsibility, peace, and human dignity.

It leaves me deeply grateful to be Catholic in a world where armed conflict has become increasingly normalised.

And it reminds me, as a scientist, of the responsibility to ensure that my work contributes to a more just, peaceful, and genuinely human future. At the same time, it calls me to adopt a disarmed language, pursuing dialogue over conflict and rejecting war.