Near the end of his new encyclical “Magnifica Humanitas,” Pope Leo XIV senses that his reader may be feeling overwhelmed. “At this point,” the Holy Father writes, “a subtle temptation may emerge, namely the thought that the problems are too big and we are too small, and that our choices, therefore, cannot make a difference.”
And here he turns to, of all people, J.R.R. Tolkien and “The Lord of the Rings”: “It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succor of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till.”
The Holy Father just quoted Gandalf in an encyclical. And it was pitch perfect.
The many threats of AI
If you don’t yet understand why a pope would feel the need to offer that kind of reassurance, then you aren’t paying close enough attention to what Artificial Intelligence is doing and may do to our world.
Many have heard that this new technology threatens to displace all sorts of workers, but such a threat, as real and profound as it is, is by no means the only one.
The U.S. Department of War has sued an AI company to make sure it can create autonomous weapons that kill without any human oversight.
AI-generated child porn is now one of the fastest-growing categories of online demonic debauchery.
The most recent version of Anthropic’s AI, Claude Mythos, was not only able to hack into virtually any phone or computer, during safety testing it was regularly able to discover it was under observation and act differently.
This is not a future problem. This is a now problem.
What scares AI’s creators
Over the past few months, I developed a friendship with Chris Olah, one of Anthropic’s co-founders, and the same person who stood alongside Pope Leo at the Vatican press conference to call for critical dialogue and cooperation between the Church and the AI industry.
I can tell you with confidence that he means it. There is a great mystery underlying the nature of what it is they are building, and the worries Olah and others have about what the future may hold as AI systems get exponentially more powerful quite rightly keep them up at night.
Their existential fears, and their need for help, underscore why the encyclical matters so much.
WILL AI attack human dignity?
Pope Leo builds his argument on three foundations Catholics should sit with carefully. The first is that something genuinely new is happening here. AI is not just a faster calculator or a smarter search engine. It “challenges the categories of Social Doctrine from within.”
The second is that labor should be at the heart of our concern. Leo XIV signed “Magnifica Humanitas” on the 135th anniversary of “Rerum Novarum,” Leo XIII’s great encyclical on behalf of workers.
Work, says the pope, is not merely an instrument or a source of income; on the contrary, “it expresses and enhances the dignity of our lives.”
What is the Church’s role?
The third is that the Church has a unique and urgent role to play at this hinge moment in history.
The Church is the guardian of a 2,000-year tradition of thinking about what human beings are. That tradition, which has navigated these kinds of dramatic moments in the past, is exactly what we need right now. And the fact that some of the most important AI researchers in the world are actively engaging it should give added confidence to act in light of our tradition.
But what, specifically, is Pope Leo asking of us?
First, he is channeling his inner St. John Paul II in urging us not to be afraid in spreading the good news in the midst of the AI revolution. “I encourage all members of the Church not to be afraid of the present challenges,” the Holy Father says. The truth which the Church has to offer at this historical moment “is a gift to be shared.”
How am I using AI in my life?
Second, he is asking us to begin with ourselves. The encyclical returns repeatedly to the following question: Does this technology “make human life on earth ‘more human’ in every aspect of that life? Does it make it more worthy of man?”
That question, first, is a personal one. How am I using AI in my own life? What habits is it building or eroding in me? Am I using it in ways that deepen my attention and my relationships, or in ways that outsource my judgment and thin out my humanity? We must evangelize ourselves first.
Third, he is asking us to get to work. The biblical image the pope returns to again and again is Nehemiah rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem: Everyone is given their section. Scientists, researchers, entrepreneurs, workers, educators and legislators and faith communities.
Perhaps you are being called to organize a labor union in your school or hospital. Perhaps you are being called to ask whether anyone has evaluated the AI tools your institution is adopting, and against what criteria. The encyclical gives you both the standing and the obligation to ask that question. If no one is asking it, then this may be your section of the wall to get started on.
Pope Leo writes: “The civilization of love will not arise from a single or spectacular gesture, but from the sum total of small and steadfast acts of fidelity.”
We have our marching orders. Time to get to work.
Charles Camosy teaches moral theology and bioethics at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.