Magnifica Humanitas

Background and Occasion

Pope Leo XIV, elected in May 2025, chose his name in conscious reference to Leo XIII, the author of Rerum Novarum. In his first address to the cardinals he explained that, as Leo XIII had answered the first industrial revolution, the Church must now respond to another industrial revolution, brought about by artificial intelligence. Magnifica Humanitas is that response. Its subtitle is On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence.

The encyclical is dated 15 May 2026, the 135th anniversary of Rerum Novarum, and was published on 25 May. The Pope presented it in person at the Vatican. It is a long document, 245 sections, and it builds on the note Antiqua et Nova (January 2025) of the Dicasteries for the Doctrine of the Faith and for Culture and Education, which had set out the Church’s thinking on AI and human intelligence. It places itself in the line of social teaching from Leo XIII and Pius XI through Paul VI, John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis, citing Rerum Novarum, Quadragesimo Anno, Populorum Progressio, Centesimus Annus and Laudato Si’.

Structure

After an introduction, the encyclical has five chapters: A dynamic approach faithful to the Gospel; Foundations and principles of the social doctrine of the Church; Technology and dominance: the grandeur of humanity in light of the promises of AI; Safeguarding humanity at a time of transformation: truth, work, freedom; and The culture of power and the civilisation of love. A conclusion follows.

Central Teaching

Social doctrine as living tradition

The first two chapters present Catholic social teaching as a tradition that develops while remaining faithful to the Gospel. The dignity of the human person, created in the image and likeness of God and called to relationship and communion, is the central criterion by which technology and its effects are to be judged. The encyclical restates the classical principles: the common good, the universal destination of goods, solidarity and subsidiarity.

What AI is and is not

The third chapter is the theological centre. The encyclical treats AI as a useful and powerful tool, but one that processes data. It does not have consciousness, experience or a moral conscience, and it learns by statistical adaptation, not by inner growth. The proper response is therefore neither fear nor uncritical enthusiasm but a measured and vigilant approach.

The same chapter rejects transhumanism and posthumanism: views that treat human limits as defects to be overcome by technology, promise a purely technical salvation, or imagine the fusion of human and machine. It also warns against visions of society in which some human beings would be treated as second-class, subordinated to a technological elite. The grandeur of humanity, the encyclical insists, does not lie in power or in technical capability.

Truth, work, freedom

The fourth chapter applies these principles to three areas:

• Truth. The common search for truth is itself a common good. Against disinformation and manipulated media, the encyclical calls for an ecology of communication and for education in critical discernment.
• Work. It restates the dignity of human labour, which is not merely a cost to be reduced, and warns against replacing workers without regard for their dignity and for the social consequences.
• Freedom. It addresses digital dependency, mass data collection and the invisible shaping of behaviour by algorithms, all of which threaten the freedom on which moral responsibility depends.

The culture of power and the civilisation of love

The final chapter diagnoses a culture of power, fuelled by the digital revolution, in which technology serves domination. It opposes an AI arms race and the use of autonomous weapons, warning that removing human control makes war easier to start, and insists that decisions over life and death must not be handed over to machines; AI itself, it argues, needs to be “disarmed”. It criticises the normalisation of war and the decline of arms control, and it questions whether traditional just-war reasoning, too often used to justify war, is adequate to the present situation. It also names new forms of slavery and exploitation in the digital economy, from the production of abusive content to labour abuses in the supply chains of rare minerals.

Against this the encyclical sets Paul VI’s ideal of a civilisation of love, built on justice, dialogue and diplomacy. It uses two biblical images: the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11), the project of a humanity that builds to make a name for itself and ends in confusion, and Nehemiah’s rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem (Nehemiah 2–6), a common work undertaken with God, in which each does his part. The encyclical closes with the Magnificat (Luke 1:46–55), in which God lifts up the lowly and scatters the proud.

Theological Significance

Magnifica Humanitas is the first encyclical devoted to artificial intelligence, and it brings classical Catholic anthropology to bear on a new question. Its central claim, that AI processes data but does not think, love or choose, rests on the Thomistic distinction between intellect and sense and on the spiritual nature of the human soul. Its rejection of transhumanism applies the doctrine of creation: human beings are creatures with a given nature and a supernatural calling, not raw material for self-redesign. Its treatment of work, property and the common good extends Rerum Novarum and Centesimus Annus, and its critique of the technocratic paradigm develops Laudato Si’.

The encyclical’s practical judgements, especially on war and economic policy, have drawn mixed responses, and like all social teaching they combine permanent principles with prudential applications to changing circumstances. Its doctrinal core, on the dignity and nature of the human person, belongs to the Church’s constant teaching.

For readers of this site, the encyclical connects the tracts on Creation and on Moral Theology with the philosophy course’s treatment of the human intellect, which explains why understanding and free choice are spiritual acts no machine can perform.