Thoughts on Magnifica Humanitas

Joseph T. Kelley

Even before its release on May 25, and certainly since, the internet has been buzzing with reviews and summaries of Pope Leo’s first encyclical letter, Magnifica Humanitas. After reading Leo’s text, I found myself wondering how many of these summaries and critiques might be AI generated!

It is a long encyclical—over 100 pages, with over 200 footnotes. The temptation may be to accept one or two of those online reviews or summaries as sufficient. Don’t succumb to that tempataion! Rather, accept that the document needs and deserves a dedicated amount of your valuable time. Don’t accept another person’s summary—or that of some soulless algorithm—and thereby cheat yourself out of the rich experience to study, critique and engage Leo’s words.   

To read it carefully in one long sit down is a challenge. It would take several hours, depending on how quickly you read. Given the nature of the topic and its many implications, you may prefer to read it chapter by chapter, or section by section over many days or weeks, so that you can slowly absorb and reflect on it little by little. Either way, you will find it both sobering and hopeful, realistic and spiritual, admonishing and encouraging. The document will help you become an educated participant in the vital, on-going conversations about the challenges of Artificial Intelligence. And that’s what Pope Leo wants. Educated, involved citizens and believers who understand, address and advocate for the value of human beings as God’s image, whom technology should support and serve.

I think the best way to read it is in dialogue with others, as the topic of a formal course or an informal study group, in person or online. I suspect such groups will soon emerge. Hopefully, they will quickly develop among members of the Augustinian family around the globe. The Encyclical should also become part of the curriculum in Augustinian schools and universities.

Many of you know that most papal encyclicals, though they bear the name and concern of a particular pope, reflect the study and expertise of others whom the pope trusts and respects. The pope weaves their ideas and insights into a document that reflects his own concerns, style and spirituality, as well as his pastoral responsibility for the Church. Given the nature and importance of the topic of Magnifica Humanitas, it should be no surprise that the document provides a summary presentation not only of relevant Catholic teaching, but also the complexities, challenges and opportunities of Artificial Intelligence.

Leo has provided the Church and the world with a substantial, pivotal document that individuals, groups, companies and societies can site in their discussions and consult for their decisions about AI. In that way, Magnifica Humanitas parallels Pope Francis’ Encyclical Laudato Si’ on integral ecology. Together, both encyclicals address vital concerns and critical issues for the future of humanity.

One way to ease into the text is to read the introduction, which is only a few pages long. It provides a clear overview of the whole document. It also gives the reader two powerful, poetic images from the Hebrew Bible to help interpret the challenges and the opportunities of AI. One is the image of the Tower of Babel. Human beings working feverishly to construct a mythical building that reaches to

heaven, not to meet God but to supersede the divine. This is the “Babel syndrome,” namely the “idolatry of profit that sacrifices the weak, a uniformity that neutralizes differences, and the pretense that a single language — even a digital one — can translate everything, including the mystery of the person, into data and performance.”

The second image is the “way of Nehemiah.” This late Hebrew prophet led the Israelites returning from exile in Babylon to the common project of rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem. This image emphasizes the common good, communal effort, and creative construction that secures future peace and justice for all. Leo call us to imitate the “way of Nehemiah:” to engage all people toward a future enhanced by AI technology, and not to leave decisions and designs to the digital elites and wealthy oligarchs whose concerns and goals are control and profit.

These two biblical images weave their way throughout the Encyclical. They help us discern the difference between an AI future that benefits a few and subjugates many, and a future in which AI helps humanity advance social justice and a culture of peace across societies and nations.

Chapters one and two of the Encyclical review Catholic Social Teaching, which Leo renames and elevates as Catholic Social Doctrine. The term Catholic Social Teaching can imply that its subject is an addendum to Church doctrine, added because of the Industrial revolution of the 18^th and 19^th centuries. By using the term Catholic Social Doctrine, Leo makes the point that this body of teaching is an essential part of the Church’s doctrine, arising out of the teachings of Jesus in the Gospels.

Chapter one provides a creative summary of the many encyclicals and other Vatican documents since Pope Leo XIII’s Encyclical Rerum Novarum in May, 1891. Chapter two elaborates the principles inherent in Catholic Social Doctrine and their living evolution

in response to social challenges and opportunities. Leo signals that these principles will not only help us respond to AI. He goes further. The unprecedented digital and social circumstances created by AI evoke and require new understandings of the principles of Catholic Social Doctrine. We need not only to invoke these century-old principles; we need to discover their relevance in a whole new way, in light of their application to the challenges of AI. In a way, the Encyclical is itself living evidence of Saint John Newman’s teaching about the development of doctrine. Magnifica Humanitas is a vital document that shows us the development of Catholic Social Doctrine unfolding before our eyes. The rich treasure of these principles of Catholic doctrine gain a whole new currency in light of the unprecedented pressures and possibilities of AI.

Pope Francis’ Laudato Si’ continues to inform and inspire those who work for integral ecology. Most of the world is just beginning to catch up with the ideas in this Encyclical. I suspect the same will be true of Magnifica Humanitas. After the initial fervor--and in some quarters agitated fever--about Leo’s first Encyclical, we will slowly get down to work. The danger with that time lapse, however, is that AI does not wait for us. Hence, it is vital that the discussion Leo calls for get started now and in earnest.

As with Francis’ call for dialogue and decisions about integral ecology, so with Leo’s call about AI. Both can leave us with feelings of hopelessness and defeat. However, Leo reminds us of the hope Christians take from the Incarnation, from God’s decision in time and history to become one with us in Christ, who calls us to become one with him. In illo uno unum. In his rejection of the naive promises of transhumanism and posthumanism that envision an end to human weakness and limits through technology, Leo reminds us of Christianity’s promise of a humanity transformed and sanctified by divine grace, a transformation that understands human weakness and failure as opportunities for growth and wholeness.

These themes of hope, based on Christian faith, run throughout the conclusion of the document. Also in the conclusion another biblical image appears. It is the image of Mary, who receives the Word Made Flesh, and who proclaims her own Magnificat. Magnificat anima mea dominum. Mary’s Magnifact inspires believers with hope, hope that her acceptance of the Word Made Flesh is the beginning of a whole new understanding of what humanity can become. Mary is the new Eve, the new Mother of humankind, who desires not “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” so that she can supersede God. But our Mother who accepts within her very being and body God’s freely given gift of the Word Made Flesh, who transforms her and all of us so that we, too, become one with the One.

Joseph T. Kelley

Joseph Kelley is Professor Emeritus of Religious and Theological Studies and former Director of the Center for the Study of Jewish-ChristianMuslim Relations at Merrimack College in Massachusetts. He is currently Augustinian Scholar in Residence at Austin Preparatory School in Reading, Massachusetts. Joe earned his Ph.D. at Boston University and also studied at the Andover-Newton Theological School, The Catholic University of America, and Villanova University. He has authored several books on Saint Augustine, as well as scholarly articles in theology and in the field of Augustine Studies. He and his wife Alina are Affiliates of the Order of Saint Augustine.