Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, has an indisputable merit: it addresses one of the great issues of our time. While much of public opinion oscillates between technological enthusiasm and apocalyptic fear, the Pope proposes a third way: to think.
The document opens with a powerful image. In number 1, he states that “the magnificent humanity that God has created finds itself today before a decisive choice: to raise a new Tower of Babel or to build the city where God and humanity dwell together.” The metaphor marks the entire encyclical: technology can be an instrument of communion or of domination.
The comparison with the historical Rerum Novarum is not coincidental. Just as Leo XIII reflected on the industrial revolution, Leo XIV attempts to understand the digital revolution. The underlying question is the same: how to prevent technical progress from ending up crushing people?
The best part of the text: the defense of human dignity
The most solid contribution of the encyclical is its insistence that the person must be above technology. In number 45, it reads: “Artificial intelligence can never substitute for the unique and irreducible value of each human person.”
Leo XIV explicitly rejects the idea that technology is an evil in itself. In numbers 4 and 9, he recalls that it is not an “antagonistic force regarding the person” nor “an evil in itself.” But he adds something decisive: “Technology is not neutral” (78), because it reflects the interests of those who design, finance, and control it.
This critique of technological power is particularly interesting. It denounces the concentration of data, algorithms, and decision-making capacity in the hands of a few global actors. And it even speaks of technological slavery and “new forms of digital colonialism” (82).
The defense of human work is also notable: “Automation must not lead to a culture of discarding the worker” (108). Faced with a purely productivist view, Leo XIV recalls that a person is worth more than their economic performance: “Human work cannot be reduced to a residue replaceable by machine efficiency” (103). Here the encyclical connects with a classic concern of the Social Doctrine of the Church: work as an expression of the person, not as a mere productive gear.
Another outstanding aspect is the critique of transhumanism. The Pope rejects the idea of a technologically “surpassed” humanity and recalls that “humanity, magnificent and wounded, must neither be replaced nor surpassed” (126).
Finally, the document surprises with its force against the militarization of artificial intelligence. One of the most forceful passages appears in number 146: “It is not acceptable to delegate life-or-death decisions to autonomous artificial intelligence systems.” “War—it affirms in number 149—can never be governed by purely technical logics.” The call for “AI disarmament” (110) and the questioning of classical just war theory (192) constitute probably some of the boldest statements in the entire text.
The silences: when the encyclical speaks less
But every encyclical is also what it does not speak about. And here some important limitations appear.
The document dedicates more than two hundred pages to artificial intelligence, but barely touches upon issues that directly affect the daily lives of millions of Catholic believers.
The text affirms the fundamental equality of every person (51), but it does not address the role of women in the ministerial structure of the Church or their access to ordained ministries or real decision-making spaces. In a Church where women constitute the vast majority of people committed to pastoral life, the silence is striking.
Something similar happens with mandatory celibacy. An encyclical reflecting on the future of humanity dedicates practically no space to an ecclesiastical discipline whose review has been requested for decades by numerous Catholic sectors.
There is also no deep reflection on the inclusion of LGBTI+ people, beyond general references to human dignity.
And although the encyclical mentions the need for truth and transparency, many readers will miss a broader treatment of the sexual abuse crisis that has severely affected the credibility of the Church.
When Rome meets the BOE
In Spain, reading the document inevitably takes on a political dimension. Not because the encyclical is partisan, but because Catholic doctrine maintains clearly divergent positions regarding several current civil laws.
Opposition to abortion and euthanasia, for example, continues to be an essential part of Catholic moral anthropology. However, both realities are legally recognized in Spain. León XIV, following the doctrine of previous popes, states emphatically in number 55: “The first human right is the right to life, from conception to natural end… When this fundamental right is denied—as occurs in induced abortion, the murder of innocents, and euthanasia—we are faced with decisions that the Church judges as gravely illicit.”
There is also an evident distance between the magisterial conception of marriage—understood doctrinally as a union between man and woman—and the family pluralism recognized by Spanish legislation.
A mature democracy can admit ethical discrepancies. But, in these cases, they are relevant disagreements between the official morality of the Church and the decisions adopted by the democratic legislator.
And other absences that the encyclical does not address
For Spanish readers, there are also other particularly significant omissions. The encyclical insists on justice, transparency, and the common good. However, there is no reference to patrimonial issues, such as land registrations (inmatriculaciones); it also emphasizes institutional responsibility without addressing the debate over the 1979 Church-State Pre-Constitutional Agreements, which have generated controversy in Spain for decades.
These were certainly not the direct subject of the encyclical. But when a document speaks of power, property, justice, and social responsibility, the Spanish reader may legitimately wonder whether these categories apply only to large technology multinationals or also to religious institutions themselves.
Conclusion: a great encyclical with pending questions
Magnifica Humanitas is probably the most important social document published by the Church in recent years. Its critique of technological power, its defense of human dignity, and its call for an ethics of artificial intelligence deserve recognition.
However, the encyclical leaves a paradoxical feeling. It lucidly analyzes the dangers of algorithms but avoids important internal debates that many believers consider equally urgent.
Perhaps that is its greatest unintentional teaching: the Church has understood that it must dialogue with machines. It remains to be seen to what extent it is willing to also dialogue with all the voices of magnificent humanity that continue to call at its doors.
EVARISTO VILLAR
Eclesalia, 15/06/26