Human beings are the sum of many dimensions: historical, biological, religious, sexual, economic, political, playful, family, social, psychological, ecological, etc. Each of these dimensions has a diversity of expressions in the life of every human being. Social institutions exist to serve and attend to the development of each of these dimensions and their multiple manifestations in each individual, through social times and spaces.
Therefore, the progress of a given society is measured by the greater or lesser degree of harmonious growth that each citizen achieves in the development of most of their dimensions.
Among social institutions (economic, political, cultural, etc.), many sociologists consider religion as the “guiding institution” or “leading institution”, because it enjoys the greatest prestige, dictates the theory of reality to all culture, and consequently sets the criteria of value. (Cf. González Anleo, Juan – Para comprender la Sociología – EVD- p. 182).
In our Western societies, and especially in Latin American ones, it is the Catholic Church that, as a guiding and leading institution, “has sealed the soul of Latin America, marking its essential historical identity and constituting itself as the cultural matrix of the continent…” (DP 445).
In such a way that, if “the joys and hopes, the sorrows and anguishes of men of our time… are at the same time joys and hopes, sorrows and anguishes of the disciples of Christ…(and) the Church, for this reason, feels intimate and truly supportive of humankind and its history.” (GS 1); then it is appropriate to affirm that the lights and shadows, the triumphs and failures, the goodness and evil of our societies are directly related to the role of the Catholic Church and its successes and shortcomings in its evangelizing task, that is, in its task of impregnating people’s lives and social institutions with the criteria of the Gospel.
But, if the task has been well done, if the task of evangelical sowing has been good, the Catholic Church must be confident and not apprehensive or fearful in the harvest of good and abundant fruits that must occur in societies led by it.
One of the most important instruments and documents available to a Pope in his pastoral and evangelizing ministry is the Encyclicals. They are epistolary documents intended to instruct Catholic faithful on matters of faith and morals, and society as a whole regarding present global challenges, while also guiding the social action of the Church, unifying criteria, and promoting the permanent task of new evangelization required by every historical juncture.
Pope Leo XIV, this past May 15th, coinciding with the 135th anniversary of the promulgation of the Encyclical “Rerum Novarum” on social matters by his predecessor, Leo XIII, signed and published his first Encyclical, titled MAGNIFICA HUMANITAS, from which it takes its first two words in Latin, meaning IN SPANISH: THE MAGNIFICENT HUMANITY. It deals with THE CARE OF THE HUMAN PERSON IN THE AGE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE and consists of an introduction, five chapters, and a conclusion.
I invite you to a calm reading, with all the detail and depth of this Encyclical’s content, in which Leo XIV reminds us of fundamental principles of the Gospel and of the Social Doctrine of the Church and especially underlines the following themes:
The human person is – and must be – at the center of all scientific and technological progress, including the development of so-called “artificial intelligence.”
The life of every man is illuminated and clarified when confronted with the mystery of Jesus Christ, revelation of God the Father. (Cf. GS 22)
The main dilemma and enormous challenge of our time is to build humanity as a “Tower of Babel” or as a “Civilization of love.”
All social and scientific development must be at the service of the common good, of everyone’s well-being.
Human fragility is not an error that needs correction but a richness and opportunity that allows for the experience of love and fraternal service.
No machine, no invention, can or should replace the human experience of loving encounter.
Truth is a common and human good that must be defended and protected from all manipulation.
Technological development must promote the well-being of people and not the other way around. Priority must be given to man over work and to the worker over machines.
Human freedom, like truth, is being threatened by algorithmic manipulation.
Faced with violence, militarism, war, and the culture of death, the Pope, like his immediate predecessors, exhorts us again to build a culture and a civilization based on love and respect for life and for the human person.
MAGNIFICA HUMANITAS offers technologists and leaders an ethical framework that prioritizes the human being and the common good over the cold metric of optimization and efficiency.
It denounces “digital colonialism” through technological tools based on resource extraction and precarious labor in the south of the planet
In this way, MAGNIFICA HUMANITAS joins the select group of great Encyclicals on the Social Doctrine of the Church, taking up the challenge of guiding everyone in the complexity of our historical juncture: the era of exponential artificial intelligence and massive automation.
Thus, Leo XIV places the Catholic Church as a guiding religious institution, not alien to our times, and as an active and dialoguing voice, evangelizing “not in a decorative way, like a superficial varnish, but in a vital, profound manner, down to its very roots—the culture and cultures of man.” IN 20
Because the ability of the human being of our time, a moral subject, capable of good and evil, to use—and not to condemn or satanize—the progress of science and technique, will always depend on the guiding role that the religious institution plays in our societies, in its indispensable and unrenounceable task of arriving in time, accompanying us, and equipping us with ethical principles and moral foundations born from the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which are summarized in the new commandment of love.
Mario J. Paredes (*)
Digital Religion
(*) Mario J. Paredes is the secretary of the Dr. Ramon Tallaj foundation, an organization whose mission is to grant scholarships in the Dominican Republic and the United States to low-income students interested in studying health careers.