Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical – a social encyclical – should have clarified whether a transition between the old and the new world truly took place. The impression, arising from several clues, is not only that the transition is yet incomplete, but that it has yet to begin.
What do we know so far from Magnifica Humanitas, Leo XIV’s first encyclical?
We know that the first social encyclical in history, written by another Leo, Leo XIII, was signed on May 15, the anniversary of Rerum novarum.
We know that this encyclical has as its subtitle “On the Safeguarding of the Human Person in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.”
We know it is to be presented by Cardinal Michael Czerny, who appears to have played a very significant role in the encyclical, and by Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, as well as by Christopher Olah, one of the co-founders of AI giant Anthropic.
We know this is a social encyclical.
Then we have the leaks, the unofficial information, which helps us understand how the encyclical will be structured. We know that the Italian edition will be long: 231 pages in volume, divided into five chapters and a conclusion, and covering 245 points.
And then we have expectations, fueled by rumors. It’s a social encyclical that takes a broad view of the entire theme of social doctrine, retraces it, seeks to trace continuity with history, and identifies a discontinuity within it. And this discontinuity was born precisely from the explosion of artificial intelligence.
The Holy See has never demonized technology, and it won’t do so now. But it has always maintained clear principles of social doctrine, from subsidiarity to solidarity, which certainly must be part of a world in which private companies are becoming more important than states, and personal profit risks being detrimental to the common good. That, too, is a crucial tenet of the Church’s social doctrine.
It’s easy to expect the encyclical to contain these specific references. It’s also easy to imagine that the theme of multilateralism, or the shared responsibility of states to contribute to the common good, will also be present. The Holy See has been pursuing, for years, a reform of the United Nations that is truly representative of all nations. Leo XIV, and with him the Holy See, has addressed the crisis of multilateralism in several speeches. Really, all the social teachings of the popes bear witness to this.
If these are likely to be the themes of the encyclical, one wonders how it is destined to have a real impact or contribute something new.
On the one hand, it is fair to note that popes should not introduce novelties at all but rather ensure continuity. True, but the continuity should create space for an innovative contribution, a new thought that, among other things, Leo XIV called for during his trip to Africa and that Cardinal Pietro Parolin evoked in celebrating the 325th anniversary of the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy, the school of the pope’s ambassadors.
It is here, however, that we see how the transition from the old to the new world has not yet begun.
The encyclical is presented by two of the cardinals who most closely represent Pope Francis’s thinking, albeit in different ways. Czerny brought to the Vatican a particular sensitivity to migrants, combined with a love of popular movements and a closeness to the most politically progressive voices. A Jesuit, naturally curious about the secular world, Czerny was Pope Francis’s right-hand man in managing a dicastery that had traditionally been, above all, intellectually vibrant, like the old Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.
Fernandez was Francis’s man, the first promoted by the pope and the last great friend to arrive in the Curia, even presented with an autographed letter from Pope Francis that highlighted what he was expected to do as “Guardian of the Faith.”
Leo XIV, in short, has relied on the Old Guard, and that could indicate either the persistent lack of a true generational change in the Vatican, or that Leo has yet to look to the future and therefore must rely on the past.
The risk is that an encyclical that should be a generational transition is actually still rooted not in the history of the Church, but in a particular pontificate.
And yes, I dare hope that the encyclical also touches on the issues of digital identity studied by Justice and Peace in the mid-1990s, or that it goes back in time to consider two documents on the 1986 global economic crisis from the same pontifical council. And again, I’d like to hope that it will be noted that in 1986, the UN declaration on the right to development called for the defense of integral human development, thus betraying the presence of a Catholic negotiator (from the Holy See? Who knows…) who had been quite successful.
The big problem, however, is that this historical perspective has been largely missing from Francis’s pontificate and risks being absent even in the first encyclical of this pontificate. It is a particularly long encyclical, and everything suggests it will be composed of countless quotations, attempting to provide continuity
Much will be interesting, but nothing will be new.
Thus, the first major act of Leo XIV’s pontificate risks being merely a declaration of intent, demonstrating, however, that Leo XIV is a pope of a new generation but still somewhat in the shadow of the old. This is an interesting fact, considering that, in his recently published Augustinian writings, Leo XIV’s thought appears in line with the history of the Church, but also personal, and in its own way innovative in its approach.
The big question is whether this encyclical will mark the end of an era or the continuation of one.
But there is a positive aspect. Since it is a very long text, everyone can read it and take from it what they see fit. Obviously, there will be manipulation on both sides. But it will also offer the opportunity to delve deeper into the Church’s thinking. Leo XIV obviously approves of the text and will even present it personally.
But one wonders whether this is a compromise text or the text Leo XIV really had in mind when he began the project.
We may be waiting for something further in the future to mark a real generational shift in thinking.
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