A city where God and humanity dwell together, not a new Tower of Babel
On the 135th anniversary of Rerum Novarum, Pope Leo XIV released Magnifica Humanitas, an encyclical calling humanity to reckon with artificial intelligence as a civilizational choice rather than merely a technical one. As Leo XIII once stood before the furnaces of industrial capitalism and asked what was owed to the worker, Leo XIV now stands before the data centers of the digital age and asks what is owed to the human person. The Church positions itself not as an adversary of progress, but as a guardian of the conviction that no advancement is worth the cost of human dignity.
- The rapid, unregulated spread of AI threatens to displace workers and erode the material conditions that make a dignified life possible.
- The militarization of artificial intelligence and the resurgence of territorial wars signal that humanity may be building the very Tower of Babel the encyclical warns against.
- Shaped in part by conversations with AI researchers including Anthropic co-founder Christopher Olah, the document takes the technology seriously while refusing to surrender moral ground.
- The Pope proposes concrete protections—job security mechanisms, ethical guardrails, strict limits on autonomous weapons—as the architecture of a more humane path forward.
- Theologians and educators like Father Anderson Pedroso see the encyclical as a stabilizing framework for a world lurching between ideological extremes, rooted in centuries of Catholic social doctrine.
On May 15th, the 135th anniversary of Rerum Novarum, Pope Leo XIV signed his first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, released publicly on May 25th. The timing was deliberate: just as Leo XIII confronted the upheaval of industrial capitalism in 1891, his namesake now addresses the age of artificial intelligence, framing the moment as a choice between erecting a new Tower of Babel or building a city where God and humanity dwell together.
The document does not reject technological progress. It insists, however, that advancement cannot hollow out the lives of ordinary people. Drawing on Augustine's City of God, the Pope argues that the Church must speak not only to spiritual matters but to the material conditions in which people actually live—calling for job protections, employment security measures, and ethical guardrails to accompany AI's transformation of society.
The encyclical was shaped in part by the Pope's conversations with AI specialists, including Christopher Olah, co-founder of Anthropic. It addresses the militarization of AI with particular urgency, demanding rigorous ethical commitments for any deployment in warfare and warning against an autonomous weapons race. It also flags the troubling return of wars driven by territorial ambition—conflicts the world believed it had left behind.
Father Anderson Antonio Pedroso of PUC-Rio told Brazil Journal that the encyclical's power lies in restating the Church's social doctrine for a new era, offering a balanced framework grounded in the fundamental principles of human coexistence. In a moment of ideological polarization, he suggested, the Church's centuries-old teaching provides a steadying voice. For Leo XIV, AI is not the first technology to pose this civilizational choice—it is simply the most urgent one his generation must answer.
Pope Leo XIV signed his first encyclical on May 15th, the 135th anniversary of Rerum Novarum—the landmark 1891 letter in which his namesake, Leo XIII, grappled with the upheaval of industrial transformation and the dignity of workers. The new document, titled Magnifica Humanitas, arrived in the world on May 25th as a deliberate echo of that earlier moment. Where Leo XIII confronted the factories and mills of the nineteenth century, Leo XIV now addresses the laboratories and data centers of the twenty-first, asking humanity to choose between two paths: erecting a new Tower of Babel, or building a city where God and human beings dwell together.
The encyclical does not condemn technological progress. Instead, it insists that advancement cannot come at the price of human dignity. The Pope calls for concrete mechanisms—job protections, employment security measures, ethical guardrails—to ensure that the transformation unfolding around us does not hollow out the lives of ordinary people. He draws on Augustine's City of God, a fifth-century meditation on the tension between earthly realities and transcendent values, to frame the Church's responsibility to speak not only about spiritual matters but about the material conditions in which people actually live.
The document emerged from conversations between the Pope and specialists in artificial intelligence, including Christopher Olah, a Canadian computer scientist and co-founder of Anthropic. These exchanges shaped a text that takes the technology seriously without surrendering moral ground. The encyclical addresses the militarization of AI with particular urgency, demanding that any deployment of artificial intelligence in warfare be subject to the most rigorous ethical commitments, grounded in respect for human life and the sanctity of existence. It warns against an arms race in autonomous weapons and flags the troubling resurgence of wars fought over economic power and territorial expansion—conflicts the world thought it had moved beyond.
Father Anderson Antonio Pedroso, rector of PUC-Rio, explained to Brazil Journal that the encyclical's true force lies in restating the Church's social doctrine for a new era. "In the encyclical, people can find the parameters and principles to dialogue with new technologies and with this world that will be transformed," he said. The document offers what Pedroso called a balanced framework—neither far left nor far right, but grounded in fundamental principles of coexistence and the safeguarding of human dignity. In a moment of ideological extremism, he suggested, the Church's centuries-old teaching on how societies should be ordered provides a steadying voice.
The Pope's choice to invoke the Tower of Babel is deliberate. That biblical image captures a particular kind of technological hubris: the building of something so vast and ambitious that it fragments human communication and scatters people across the earth. The alternative he proposes is not the rejection of technology but its subordination to human flourishing. Each generation inherits the task of shaping its own time, the encyclical states, of making history into a place where the dignity of every person is protected, where justice is advanced, and where fraternity becomes possible. For Leo XIV, artificial intelligence is not the first technology to pose this choice. It is simply the most urgent one his generation will face.
Citações Notáveis
In the encyclical, people can find the parameters and principles to dialogue with new technologies and with this world that will be transformed.— Father Anderson Antonio Pedroso, rector of PUC-Rio
The force of this encyclical is to restate the Church's social doctrine for a new era.— Father Anderson Antonio Pedroso
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why did the Pope choose to sign this on the anniversary of Rerum Novarum specifically?
Because Leo XIII was writing at the moment when industrial machinery was transforming work itself—when people feared the factory would swallow human dignity. Leo XIV is doing the same thing now, but with AI. He's saying: this is what the Church does. It watches the world change and asks whether we're still treating people as people.
The Tower of Babel reference—is that meant to be a warning against AI itself, or against how we're building it?
Against how we're building it. The Pope isn't saying technology is sinful. He's saying that if we build it without regard for human dignity, without protecting workers, without ethical limits on weapons—then yes, we scatter ourselves. We lose the ability to speak to one another as human beings.
What does "mechanisms to protect jobs" actually mean in practice?
The encyclical doesn't spell out policy details. It's laying down a principle: you cannot displace millions of workers in the name of progress and call that acceptable. The Church is saying governments and companies need to think about what happens to people when their livelihoods disappear.
Why bring in Augustine's City of God, a book from the fifth century?
Because Augustine was wrestling with the same fundamental question: how do we live together in the world as it actually is, not as we wish it were? He distinguished between the city of God—ordered by transcendent values—and the earthly city. The Pope is saying the Church has to speak about both. It can't retreat into pure spirituality and ignore what AI does to real people's lives.
Does the encyclical take a position on whether AI development should slow down?
No. It's not a call for a pause. It's a call for development with conscience. The Pope consulted with AI researchers like Christopher Olah because he wanted to understand the technology, not condemn it from ignorance. But understanding it made the ethical demands clearer, not softer.
What's the Church's actual leverage here? Why would tech companies listen?
The Church doesn't have leverage in the traditional sense. What it has is moral authority and a global audience. It's offering a framework for thinking about these questions that doesn't come from Silicon Valley or Beijing. In a world fragmenting into ideological camps, that kind of grounded, centuries-old wisdom about human dignity might actually matter to people trying to figure out what to do.