What Europe can learn about AI from the Pope’s first encyclical

Pope Leo XIV recently published his first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas.
It challenges the assumption that technological capability automatically translates into social progress and asks who benefits.
The message is clear: AI’s progress must be measured by its impact on the human person and the common good.

In 1891, Pope Leo XIII published Rerum Novarum, the foundational text of modern Catholic social doctrine. Written amid the upheavals of the Industrial Revolution, it sought a path between laissez-faire capitalism and revolutionary socialism, insisting that economic transformation could not come at the expense of human dignity.

One hundred and thirty-five years later, Pope Leo XIV has chosen similarly transformative terrain for his first and much-awaited encyclical. In Magnifica Humanitas, the leader of the Catholic Church turns his attention to artificial intelligence (AI), digital power and the concentration of technological authority.

The message of the letter to the bishops of the Catholic church is clear: technological progress cannot be judged solely by efficiency, productivity or market value. It must ultimately be measured by its impact on the human person and the common good.

For political and business leaders, particularly in Europe, the encyclical is more than a religious document. It is a strategic intervention in one of the defining debates of the century: how societies can remain human in an era increasingly shaped by algorithms.

A new social question in the era of AI

The historical parallel matters. In 1891, Leo XIII confronted the social consequences of mechanization (“the condition of the working classes”). Today, Leo XIV confronts the social consequences of cognition itself becoming partially automated.

The Pope explicitly frames AI as a transformative force comparable to the Industrial Revolution, warning that societies are once again entering a period in which economic gains risk being concentrated while social costs are widely distributed.

His…

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