A Pastoral Epistle on the True Question Beneath the Question of Artificial Intelligence

Carissimi

Beloved in Christ,

Grace be to you and peace from God the Father, and from Our Lord Jesus Christ.

The recent publication of Magnifica Humanitas, the first encyclical of Pope Leo XIV, demands from us neither uncritical enthusiasm nor reflexive dismissal, but a sober and disciplined reading. Much has been made of its engagement with artificial intelligence, and it is widely presented as a response to the technological conditions of our age. Yet this does not reach the heart of the matter. Artificial intelligence is not the true subject of the encyclical. It is the occasion. The real subject is man—what man is, what he now believes himself to be, and what he is becoming as his power increases beyond anything known before.¹

The Holy Father presents humanity as standing at a crossroads, speaking of a choice between constructing a new “Tower of Babel, marked by self-sufficiency and the idolatry of profit,” and rebuilding “Jerusalem… as a project of shared responsibility and communion under the gaze of God.”² This is a striking and evocative image, and it rightly captures the sense of a decisive moment. Yet the crisis is deeper still. It is not first a question of what man builds, but of who man is when he builds. A civilisation cannot be rightly ordered if man himself is disordered, and modern man, having ceased to begin with God, no longer possesses a stable understanding of himself.³

For this reason, the encyclical returns persistently to the language of human dignity, fraternity, solidarity, and the common good. It affirms that nothing authentically human will be lost, but rather that “everything will be purified and reunited in the One… rescuing them from nothingness and delivering them, redeemed, to the Father.”⁴ These are noble affirmations, rooted in the Christian vision of creation and redemption. Yet they do not stand on their own. They depend upon a prior truth: that man derives his dignity not from himself, but from God.⁵ When this order is not clearly maintained, dignity begins to function as a foundation rather than as a consequence, and what is derivative is made to carry what only the first principle can sustain.⁶

Christ is present in the encyclical, and this must be acknowledged. The Incarnation is recalled, and the mystery of recapitulation is invoked: that “the Father has decreed to bring all things… back to Christ, the one Head.”⁴ Yet Christ is most often presented in relation to man—as the one who reveals human greatness, who gathers the fragments of human experience, who accompanies the human family in history. All of this is true. But it is not sufficient. Christ is not merely the one who reveals man. He is the one before whom man must bow.⁷ He is not only the fulfilment of human aspiration. He is the Lord who judges it.⁸

This orientation is made explicit in the text itself: “this human face is the fullness toward which history is moving… nothing will be lost that is authentically human… everything will be purified and reunited in the One.”⁴ Such language, while drawing upon the mystery of recapitulation, places a notable weight upon what is human as the interpretive centre of the argument.

Here lies the central weakness of the encyclical. It does not deny the Kingship of Christ, but it does not proclaim it with the clarity demanded by the present crisis. The Church has never begun with man and moved upward. She has begun with God and spoken downward.⁹ She has declared that man is not his own, that he stands under law, under judgment, and under grace.¹⁰ When this order is softened, even without formal denial, the entire structure of the argument is weakened. The language remains recognisably Catholic, but its force is diminished.

This becomes more evident in the treatment of artificial intelligence. The encyclical rightly insists that “technological innovations… are not neutral, for they can either foster participation and justice or exacerbate inequality, control and exclusion.”¹¹ It observes that the concentration of knowledge and technological power creates new imbalances, such that “when these goods remain concentrated in the hands of a few… a new imbalance is created that contradicts the universal destination of goods.”¹² These are serious and legitimate concerns. They demonstrate a clear awareness that technology shapes society and is not merely a passive tool.

The encyclical further describes artificial intelligence as an “accelerator” that places “traditional social categories in crisis,”¹¹ indicating not only a tool, but a force that reshapes the very framework within which human life is understood. This is extended in a striking way to immaterial goods, with the suggestion that “patents, algorithms, digital platforms, technological infrastructures, and data” are to be understood within this same moral horizon of shared access and responsibility.¹² This expansion signals a significant development in the application of traditional principles.

Yet the analysis does not reach its deepest level. Artificial intelligence is not the origin of the crisis. It is its manifestation. The machine does not corrupt the will; it executes it.¹³ It does not introduce disorder; it extends its reach. This is why the problem cannot be resolved at the level of systems alone. The question is not technological but moral and theological.¹⁴

Here the encyclical remains too restrained. It speaks of responsibility, but it does not press the reality that man is fallen. Without a clear doctrine of sin, the analysis remains incomplete. The Church has always taught that the disorder of the world proceeds from the disorder of the human heart.¹⁵ Augustine of Hippo describes history as divided between two loves: the love of God and the love of self.¹⁶ Artificial intelligence will serve whichever of these governs the human will.

The same need for clarity arises in the encyclical’s treatment of war. It states that, “without prejudice to the right to self-defense in the strictest sense,” the just war theory has been “far too often invoked to justify any war whatsoever” and may now be considered “outdated.”¹⁷ The encyclical continues by proposing that humanity now possesses “more effective and humane instruments to promote life and resolve conflicts,” identifying dialogue, diplomacy, and forgiveness as preferable to recourse to armed force.¹⁷ While this aspiration is commendable, it must be distinguished from the doctrinal question of whether the moral legitimacy of just war itself remains intact.

A similar clarity is required in the encyclical’s acknowledgment of historical injustices such as slavery. It must be said plainly that the Church has never taught, approved, or condoned slavery understood as the ownership of one human being by another. Such a notion is incompatible with the natural law and with the truth that every man is created in the image of God. Where forms of servitude existed in history, they were tolerated within particular social conditions, but never upheld as a moral good in themselves. The distinction is essential. Toleration is not endorsement, and historical circumstance is not doctrine.²⁰

Moreover, the Church did not remain silent. Over time, she spoke with increasing clarity and authority in condemning both slavery and the slave trade. The teaching of Pope Paul III in Sublimis Deus, followed by the explicit condemnations of Pope Gregory XVI in In Supremo Apostolatus and Pope Leo XIII in In Plurimis, leaves no doubt as to the mind of the Church. These were not reversals of earlier doctrine, but authoritative reaffirmations and clarifications of principles already present within the tradition.²¹

Taken together, these elements reveal not only a difference of emphasis, but a deliberate method governing the encyclical’s approach. Its tone is dialogical and reflective. It seeks engagement. There is a place for this, but it cannot replace proclamation. The Church does not negotiate truth; she declares it.²² When this clarity is weakened, the result is not immediate error, but gradual dilution.

The reason for this shift must also be understood. The encyclical is not merely expressing a theological preference; it is adopting a method. It seeks to articulate the Church’s moral teaching in a form that can be received within a pluralistic and largely secular world, and therefore it places emphasis upon concepts—human dignity, fraternity, solidarity—that can function as a shared moral language even where explicit faith is absent. In this sense, the document is attempting to build a bridge, to make Catholic teaching intelligible and persuasive without first demanding conversion.

In this respect, though addressed formally to the Church, the encyclical speaks in a voice calibrated for the world, and this choice governs both its method and its limits. It is not that the Church is speaking to the world from her own ground; rather, she speaks in such a way that the world may receive her without first being confronted. This is a significant shift. For when the presentation of truth begins from what is commonly accepted rather than from what is divinely revealed, the order is subtly reversed. The Church no longer speaks first as one who proclaims from authority, but as one who seeks convergence. What is gained in accessibility may be lost in clarity. Christ is not denied, but He is no longer placed so unmistakably at the beginning and the end of the argument.

The question, therefore, is not whether the Church should speak to the modern world, but whether she can do so without first speaking as the Church.

At the centre of what must be preserved stands a truth that admits of no ambiguity. Christ is King.²³ His authority extends over men, societies, and all that man creates. When this is not explicitly affirmed, every appeal to justice, peace, and dignity remains without its proper foundation.

Thus we return to the fundamental question beneath the encyclical. Artificial intelligence is not the decisive issue. Man is. And beneath that lies the question that determines everything: does man belong to God, or does he claim to belong to himself?²⁴

If he belongs to himself, then his works—however refined and however powerful—will bear the mark of his disorder. They will not liberate him, but bind him more effectively to the errors he refuses to abandon. If he belongs to the world, then his systems will serve the shifting desires of the age, and what is called progress will conceal a deeper loss. But if man belongs to God—truly, not rhetorically, but in obedience—then even his greatest powers may yet be ordered toward the good. Yet that ordering will not arise from reflection alone, nor will it be secured by dialogue or regulation. It requires conversion. It requires submission. It requires that man cease to place himself at the centre and return to the truth from which he has departed.

This is where the encyclical must be read with caution, and where it must be completed by the tradition it presupposes but does not fully articulate. The Church does not exist to stabilise man in his present condition. She exists to call him out of it. She does not merely illuminate dignity; she judges sin. She does not simply accompany humanity; she commands it in the name of Christ. And Christ is not one voice among many in the human story. He is its Lord.

Until this is said without hesitation, without qualification, and without dilution, the crisis of our age—whether expressed through artificial intelligence or any other form of power—will not be resolved. It will only take on new forms. The question before us has not changed. It is the same question that has always stood before man: whether he will serve God or serve himself. Upon that answer depends not only the future of technology, but the salvation of souls.

Christ must reign—not as an idea, nor as a sentiment, but as King in truth, in authority, and in fact. Only under His sovereignty does human dignity stand secure, and only within His order can the works of man, however advanced, be directed toward the good.

Vivat Christus Rex.

Oremus pro invicem.

I.X.

Brichtelmestunensis
Die Quinta infra octavam Pentecostes
Commemoratio: S. Augustini Episcopi et Confessoris MMXXVI A.D.

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Pro Pontifice Nostro Leone XIV

Oratio pro Apostolatu Vetero-Romano

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