Magnifica Humanitas: Today, the Church Speaks to the Age of AI

Today, 15 May 2026 — the 135th anniversary of Rerum Novarum — Pope Leo XIV is expected to sign his first encyclical. Provisionally titled Magnifica Humanitas (“Magnificent Humanity”), the document is reported to address artificial intelligence, international peace, and what Vatican sources describe as a deepening crisis in international law. If the date holds, it will be one of the most deliberately symbolic moments in recent Church history.

And it’s worth pausing to understand why.

Three great documents of Catholic Social Teaching (CST) were released on 15 May, each building on the last over the past seven decades. Together they form the bedrock of the Church’s engagement with the modern world. If Leo XIV releases his encyclical today, he steps into a living tradition, not just issuing a letter.

Here’s what that tradition looks like — and why it matters to all of us, Catholic or not.

1. The “Social Question” ~ Labor, Dignity, and the Economy

Each of these three encyclicals was written to address what philosophers and theologians call the “Social Question” — the crisis of economic injustice and the place of the human person in a modern industrial economy. The answers they offered were not abstract. They were concrete, consistent, and, for their time, genuinely radical.

Dignity of Labor: All three documents reject the idea that labor is just another commodity to be purchased at the lowest possible price. A worker is not a unit of production. They are a human being made in the image of God, and that changes everything about how we should structure wages, hours, and working conditions.

The Just Wage: Each encyclical argues for a “living wage” — not whatever the market will bear, but enough for a worker to support a family in reasonable comfort. This was a direct challenge to the laissez-faire economics of the 19th century, and it remains a challenge to our own.

The Right to Association: All three vigorously defend workers’ right to form unions. Not merely tolerate it — defend it. The Church saw labor organizing not as a threat to social order but as a necessary expression of human solidarity.

2. A Middle Path Between Two Failed Extremes

Perhaps the most politically striking thing about these encyclicals is what they refused to do: choose sides between capitalism and socialism. Instead, they carved out a distinctly “catholic” third way, and I am intentionally using a lower case “c”.

Against Unbridled Capitalism: The documents criticize what they called “liberalism” — meaning the classical economic variety — for its tendency to prioritize profit over people and to generate vast concentrations of wealth while leaving workers behind.

Against Authoritarian Socialism and Communism: At the same time, they reject the socialist framework of class struggle and the abolition of private property. The problem with socialism, in the Church’s view, is not merely that it is economically inefficient — it is that it misunderstands the human person. People have a natural right to own property, and that right is bound up with their dignity and freedom.

Instead of siding with capitalism or socialism, the Church proposed class harmony and a vision of property ownership ordered toward the good of others, but never absolute. Key takeaway: The Church’s ‘third way’ aims for balance between individual rights and social responsibility.

3. The Principle of Subsidiarity

Quadragesimo Anno (1931) did something philosophically important that often goes underappreciated: it formally named and defined the principle of subsidiarity.

The core idea: social problems are best handled at the smallest competent authority level—families before communities, then municipalities, states, and international bodies, with larger institutions supporting, not overwhelming, smaller ones. Key takeaway: Subsidiarity prioritizes effective local action and support.

Mater et Magistra (1961) developed this further for a world of growing government complexity. Yes, the state has a legitimate role in the economy. But state intervention that crowds out individual initiative, local association, and community life is not progress — it is a different kind of failure.

4. Private Property and the Common Good

These documents share a nuanced ~ and often misunderstood ~ view of ownership.

The Right to Private Property is real. It is not a grudging concession or a temporary accommodation. It flows from human nature and is necessary for genuine freedom.

But the Universal Destination of Goods limits that right. The Earth’s resources are, ultimately, meant for all of humanity. That means the right to private property is never absolute. What you own, you are steward of — and the stewardship has moral consequences. Property must serve the Common Good, or it fails its own purpose.

5. A Family of Documents — Linked by Date and Intention

These three encyclicals are not simply thematically related; the Church intentionally links them by their timing and explicit references to one another.

Rerum Novarum (“On New “ings”) was issued by Pope Leo XIII on 15 May 1891, amid the upheaval of the Industrial Revolution. It is rightly called the founding document of modern Catholic Social Teaching.

Quadragesimo Anno (“In the “rtieth Year”) was used by Pope Pius XI on 15 May 1931 — exactly forty years later, and deliberately so. It deepened and expanded Leo XIII’s thought, introduced the principle of subsidiarity, and applied CST to the new crises of the Great Depression. The Jesuit theologian Oswald von Nell-Breuning played a significant role in drafting it.

Pope John XXIII issued Mater et Magistra (“Mother” and “Teacher”) on 15 May 1961 — the 70th anniversary — updating the tradition once again for a world grappling with decolonization, agricultural crises, global inequality, and the early stages of the technological age.

It is worth noting that other major social encyclicals extend this tradition beyond 15 May: Pope John XXIII’s Pacem in XXIII (1963), Pope Paul VI’s Populorum Progressio (1967), and Pope John Paul II’s Centesimus Annus (1991) are essential parts of the conversation. John Paul II had actually intended to publish Laborem Exercens on 15 May 1981, to mark the 90th anniversary — but the assassination attempt on his life on 13 May of that year forced a delay until September. Even that painful footnote underscores how intentional this tradition is.

May 15th: Magnifica Humanitas

If Magnifica Humanitas is signed today, it will be a notable historical moment. The Church now addresses new challenges: artificial intelligence, algorithmic labor changes, surveillance capitalism, and evolving international law. Key takeaway: The tradition adapts to each era’s biggest questions.

While the specifics of today’s questions are new, their essence remains the same: Who benefits from new technology? Who is left behind? How do we maintain human dignity as technology blurs boundaries? Key takeaway: The core challenge remains human dignity amid technological change.

Pope Leo XIV chose his name deliberately. He has said from the beginning that Leo XIII inspires his pontificate. Today, we may see what that inheritance looks like in the 21st century.

Questions to Sit With Before You Read Pope Leo’s Encyclical 

As you look for Magnifica Humanitas, here are a few questions worth turning over:

1. Artificial intelligence is reshaping the nature of work itself — not just automating tasks, but transforming what it means to be skilled, employable, or economically necessary. Does the Church’s century-old deChurch’s the dignity of labor still speak to that reality? And if so, what would a “just wage” look like in an economy where AI can do more and more of what humans once did?
2. The principle of subsidiarity holds that decisions should be made at the lowest effective level — the family, the community, or the local authority. But AI and digital platforms operate globally and instantaneously, with no regard for national borders, let alone local communities. Is subsidiarity even a coherent principle in a world like that — or does it need to be radically reimagined?
3. Catholic Social Teaching has always tried to chart a middle path between unrestrained markets and state control. In an era when the most powerful economic actors are not nations but technology companies, and when no single government can effectively regulate them, what does that “third way” actually look like in practice?
4. The social encyclicals have consistently addressed “all people of good will”, not just Catholics. A” As you read Magnifica Humanitas, ask yourself: does its moral framework — rooted in human dignity, the common good, and solidarity — translate into the secular, pluralist conversations happening right now about AI governance, labor rights, and global inequality? Should it?