Magnifica Humanitas is really about stepping back and asking what it means to be human at a time when technology—especially AI—is changing so much so quickly. Pope Leo XIV isn’t against technology; he can see the good it can do. But he’s worried that, without noticing, we might start treating people like data or problems to be fixed, instead of human beings. That’s why he keeps coming back to one simple idea: every person has a dignity that no machine can ever match or replace.
He’s not just giving answers—he’s inviting us to think for ourselves and to really engage with these issues, rather than just skimming summaries or leaving it to experts. The big question he puts to us is this: what kind of future are we building? One focused only on efficiency, power, and control, or one built on care, fairness, and a sense of responsibility for each other?
At its heart, the encyclical keeps returning to a very grounding truth: every person has a worth that can’t be taken away. And while some of what he says is quite challenging—especially about the risks of AI—it’s also hopeful. He reminds us that being human, with all our limits and weaknesses, is not something to fix or escape from, but something valuable in itself. In the end, his message is really clear: technology should help us live better as human beings, not turn us into something less, and we’ll know we’re on the right path by how we treat the people who are most easily overlooked.
Read Pope Leo’s first encyclical here:
