This is first of a series of essays we’re running that respond to Magnifica Humanitas.
In 1891, in response to the Industrial Revolution, Pope Leo XIII released an encyclical called Rerum Novarum, translated “New Things.” Industrialism brought profound social changes: work changed from subsistent farming to factories. Families moved from the countryside into packed cities. Trade between nations increased. The resultant shifts affected the human person, family, work, economic policies, and politics. Responding to these “New Things,” the Pope drew on principles from Christianity: fraternity between employees and employers, a just wage to buy private property, the state’s protection of those being abused.
From those industrial days, modern Catholic Social Teaching (CST) emerged. The world has gone through several iterations of “new things.” The world wars. The sexual revolution. The internet revolution. What CST attempts to do is to apply changeless Christian principles to these “new things” that we encounter. It’s not a list of rules or a mere list of principles but an effort to foster a distinct Christian life that brings good news in light of contemporary issues. Anna Rowlands calls CST a “profound social midwifery” giving birth to new ways of living considering the love found in the gospel. The church doesn’t have answers to all the social issues but, as Pius XII said, she should “point quietly to the values she has forged and which she places at the disposal of all for the solution of social problems.”
The day after Pentecost, a new Leo issued an encyclical called Magnifica Humanitas, magnificent humanity, to address the new AI revolution. Leo XIV takes technology and innovation back to the beginning at the Tower of Babel—an interesting image especially as Pentecost is often referred to as a reverse Babel. Leo, however, contrasts Babel with the image of Nehemiah rebuilding the Jerusalem wall by fostering a language of communion rather than uniformity—a language that perhaps prefigures the Pentecostal tongues of fire: distinct and particular yet universal. He warns of the “Babel syndrome,” “namely the idolatry of profit that sacrifices the weak, a uniformity that neutralizes differences, and the pretense that a single language — even a digital one — can translate everything, including the mystery of the person, into data and performance” (para. 10). This syndrome isn’t necessarily new but is being applied in a new technology.
Christians must have different values than the reigning paradigm of any given moment. Leo references his predecessor, Pope Francis, on the technocratic paradigm where “the tendency to let the logic of efficiency, control and profit alone shape personal, social and economic decisions. This makes it clear that technology is not simply a tool. When it becomes the standard by which everything is judged, it begins to dictate what matters and what can be discarded, reducing creation to an object of exploitation and human beings to mere cogs in a system driven toward ever greater efficiency” (para. 92). We simply will not lead healthy or whole lives under a technocratic imagination.
Here, in addressing the imagination, is where Catholic Social Teaching does its best work. It’s not a matter of mere pragmatism or application. This element of CST can be frustrating for those who want to be told what to do. But encyclicals have different purposes. They are to help guide Christians in clear, gospel imaginations. There are (at least) two imaginations with which we build—two imaginations of how to be a human, raise a family, spend money, participate in statecraft, etc. The aim is to expose the ways a modern imagination has disordered our world and to paint an alternative path. It’s not just the ends that need to change because with a disordered imagination, a good end could be pursued with the wrong means. CST aims to lay out a gospel-oriented imaginative vision and then invite the lay apostolate to apply the principles.
To develop a different imagination, CST employs one foundation and several principles (sometimes called themes). The first half of Magnifica Humanitas reviews these central ideas.
At the heart of CST is the title of Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical: magnificent humanity. Human dignity stems from being created in the image of God, and thus, we are bestowed with profound equality and resultant duties and rights—regardless of class, skin color, income, or ability. A right view of the human person—and protections around the person—founds a proper imagination. All of society—family, work, politics, economy, immigration, globalization—should be structured around and support the human, revealed fully in the person of Jesus. One of the interesting moves Leo makes in this most recent encyclical is tying limitations to magnificent humans. “Everything that appears as a ‘limit’ — incapacity, illness, old age, suffering, vulnerability — tends to be seen primarily as a defect to be corrected, rather than as a reality through which our humanity matures and opens itself to relationship. And yet we must remember that humanity flourishes not despite limitations, but often through them” (para 118).
To recognize the profound dignity of every human leads to the first principle: solidarity. If I recognize the human in myself, then I’m led to see it in all others. The way Pope Loe XIV talks about this in his recent encyclical is that a recognition of our limits leads to solidarity in compassion: “Indeed, precisely because we experience limits — vulnerability, suffering and failure — we can recognize the inviolable dignity of every person, both our own and that of others” (para 122).
The second principle is subsidiarity. If society is to be structured around the human, then decisions should be made closest to the humans they affect. Too often, policies are made from the top down in a one-size-fits-all approach. It’s not that decisions should never be made at a national level, but without mediating institutions, tyranny often results. This right level of decision-making leads to participation and communion.
The context of solidarity and subsidiarity leads to the common good, a term hotly debated within CST circles. Gaudium et Spees defines the common good as the “sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to reach fulfillment more fully and easily.” The common good is about sharing what we hold in common. If human being is about being with and being towards, then the common good guards and guides toward the goal of sociality. If I have a private good—say, some donuts—then once I pass out all my donuts, then there’s none left. A common good is different—like justice or love. These common goods don’t run out and, in fact, can only be enjoyed with others, so we should support policies and ways of life that encourage the exponential sharing of such common goods.
The last principle is social justice. Under this principle are sub-principles like the universal destination of goods and the preferential option for the poor. In essence, we can’t say a society or state or family or economy is good unless the poor are taken care of. We ought to be concerned with the poor because Jesus says this where he resides (Matt 25). God gifts the world enough to go around, and whatever we own privately is for the sake of others. As Pope Leo XIII affirmed in Rerum Novarum, private property is a good, but it’s a good that’s for sharing generously with others.
Motivated by these principles, we ought to imagine a different world. It’s not seeking to establish some utopia but to move our world in a more healthy and whole direction.
Encyclicals like Magnifica Humanitas aren’t for hot takes. I’m Protestant. I don’t think these documents are infallible. There are aspects to question and critique. But I can recognize that they are written from a wise and careful tradition of Christians reflecting on the truth of Scripture and striving to apply it to contemporary challenges. As such, we should sit with these words, because perhaps there is something to teach us.
Catholic Social Teaching has been called the best kept secret of the Catholic church. It seems like the secret is getting out, and for that, I’m glad.
Glossary
Common Good: Those goods which lead to human development, care, and respect.
Encyclical: A formal letter from the Pope to bishops and sometimes to the whole church or world. These form the foundation of Catholic Social Teaching but there are also apostolic exhortations (more practical and pastoral) and conciliar documents (a more collaborative document like those released around Vatican II) and homilies and speeches that are important for reflecting on biblical teachings that flesh out CST.
Human Dignity: The foundation of CST. Each person has unique and equal worth and value.
Lay Apostolate: Think something like “priesthood of all believers.” The lay people are tasked with infusing their lives with the gospel.
Solidarity: The social reality resulting from seeing human dignity. Solidarity connects us to one another, seeing each other as dignified and worthy of respect and love.
Social Justice: How the poor are treated should always be considered and respected.
Subsidiarity: One-size-fits-all approaches seldom work. A family or community has the right to make decisions that affect them. Decisions shouldn’t be made at the highest level but at the smallest. As such, we need mediating institutions so seldom found in modern life.
Universal Destination of Goods: God makes it rain on the just and the unjust. Goods should be given to the community in a way that everyone has enough to live a dignified life.
Image Credit: Pieter Bruegel the Elder, “The Tower of Babel” (1563)
