Faith Works 6-5-2026
Jeff Gill
Artificial humanity in actual life and everyday faith
___
Pope Leo XIV issued the first encyclical letter of his papacy, entitled “Magnifica Humanitas.” It’s easy to find online; the text is some 40,000 words, and in 12 point type at double space about 150 pages. You could call it a short book, but one with some heavy thinking from the first line:
“Humanity, created by God in all its grandeur, is today facing a pivotal choice: either to construct a new Tower of Babel or to build the city in which God and humanity dwell together.”
If you’re wondering what an encyclical letter is and how it fits into the teaching role of the Catholic Church, the pope covers that ground for you, too. He’s talking about the social doctrine of the faith as he is interpreting it for our present age, and within that condition you see something of what an encyclical is. Such a document is not meant to express enduring truth as much as to apply what the church teaches to the times we find ourselves in.
Right now, that’s AI, artificial intelligence. Computer driven intelligence of a sort which can perform administrative tasks and do analysis in a flash, which threatens to collapse and consolidate entry level work of all sorts, especially in the knowledge space. Pope Leo reminds his readers that esteemed predecessors, like another Leo his choice of papal name was clearly meant to evoke, wrote entire encyclicals about social issues, like “Rerum Novarum” in 1891.
In a sense, “Magnifica Humanitas” is a series of footnotes to “Rerum Novarum,” which is itself the basis for most Catholic social teaching to the present day. Pope Leo XIII in the Nineteenth Century wanted to address the relationship of labor and capital investment, and the duties and responsibilities between governments and their people.
That previous Leo took no little criticism from secular leaders asking who the pope thought he was to comment and command in the world of business and employment, and the current Leo has had much the same response. But this non-Catholic thinks both of them are just doing their job, whether elected officials or the chief executive officers of the world agree or no.
It is interesting: if the Archbishop of Canterbury, or the Ecumenical Patriarch of Orthodoxy, or any other Christian communion’s leader were to issue an authoritative teaching document on matters of technology and justice, I doubt it would roil the waters much. The Bishop of Rome, as the Vicar of Christ, still has enough weight in the wider world to make crowned heads and Resolute desks uneasy, and I think that’s a good thing.
Pope Leo XIV is asking not just his adherents, but people of faith and those of good will in general, to think about how our use of technology influences how we see other human individuals in all their humanity, a quality we share together, which we do not with chatbots or online assistants. Could our patterns of interaction with AI tools start to erode our sense of humanity when dealing with people?
His focus on the core aspects of humanity is appealing to me, no less than when he pushes my nerd button by quoting towards the end, about responsibility on our part, from J.R.R. Tolkien. It’s a passage where Gandalf is speaking about the hopes of humanity in a time of doubt and great challenge:
“It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour 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.”
I might wish the pope had added just one more line to that quote, which went on: “What weather they shall have is not ours to rule.”
Pope Leo is asking us at least to think about the weather forecast before we make too many plans. I have a few more thoughts about this encyclical before I’m ready to move on with July’s celebrations.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he’s happy to read an encyclical from time to time. Tell him how you feel about AI at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on X.
Jeff Gill
Artificial humanity in actual life and everyday faith
___
Pope Leo XIV issued the first encyclical letter of his papacy, entitled “Magnifica Humanitas.” It’s easy to find online; the text is some 40,000 words, and in 12 point type at double space about 150 pages. You could call it a short book, but one with some heavy thinking from the first line:
“Humanity, created by God in all its grandeur, is today facing a pivotal choice: either to construct a new Tower of Babel or to build the city in which God and humanity dwell together.”
If you’re wondering what an encyclical letter is and how it fits into the teaching role of the Catholic Church, the pope covers that ground for you, too. He’s talking about the social doctrine of the faith as he is interpreting it for our present age, and within that condition you see something of what an encyclical is. Such a document is not meant to express enduring truth as much as to apply what the church teaches to the times we find ourselves in.
Right now, that’s AI, artificial intelligence. Computer driven intelligence of a sort which can perform administrative tasks and do analysis in a flash, which threatens to collapse and consolidate entry level work of all sorts, especially in the knowledge space. Pope Leo reminds his readers that esteemed predecessors, like another Leo his choice of papal name was clearly meant to evoke, wrote entire encyclicals about social issues, like “Rerum Novarum” in 1891.
In a sense, “Magnifica Humanitas” is a series of footnotes to “Rerum Novarum,” which is itself the basis for most Catholic social teaching to the present day. Pope Leo XIII in the Nineteenth Century wanted to address the relationship of labor and capital investment, and the duties and responsibilities between governments and their people.
That previous Leo took no little criticism from secular leaders asking who the pope thought he was to comment and command in the world of business and employment, and the current Leo has had much the same response. But this non-Catholic thinks both of them are just doing their job, whether elected officials or the chief executive officers of the world agree or no.
It is interesting: if the Archbishop of Canterbury, or the Ecumenical Patriarch of Orthodoxy, or any other Christian communion’s leader were to issue an authoritative teaching document on matters of technology and justice, I doubt it would roil the waters much. The Bishop of Rome, as the Vicar of Christ, still has enough weight in the wider world to make crowned heads and Resolute desks uneasy, and I think that’s a good thing.
Pope Leo XIV is asking not just his adherents, but people of faith and those of good will in general, to think about how our use of technology influences how we see other human individuals in all their humanity, a quality we share together, which we do not with chatbots or online assistants. Could our patterns of interaction with AI tools start to erode our sense of humanity when dealing with people?
His focus on the core aspects of humanity is appealing to me, no less than when he pushes my nerd button by quoting towards the end, about responsibility on our part, from J.R.R. Tolkien. It’s a passage where Gandalf is speaking about the hopes of humanity in a time of doubt and great challenge:
“It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour 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.”
I might wish the pope had added just one more line to that quote, which went on: “What weather they shall have is not ours to rule.”
Pope Leo is asking us at least to think about the weather forecast before we make too many plans. I have a few more thoughts about this encyclical before I’m ready to move on with July’s celebrations.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he’s happy to read an encyclical from time to time. Tell him how you feel about AI at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on X.
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