I'm a Protestant. I Read Pope Leo's New Encyclical

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:00]I'm a Protestant. Anglican, if we're being specific. Episcopalian, if we're being super specific. But like many of you, when I found out Pope Leo was writing an encyclical on AI, I couldn't wait. From day one of his pontificate, when he took the name Leo the 14th, he signaled that Catholic social teaching would be a major focus of his, building on the legacy of Pope Leo the 13th, who published the foundational work of the Catholic social teaching, Rerum Novarum, in 1891. What was implicit then in the Pope's choice of that name has now been made explicit in Magnificat Humanae Vitae, his first major encyclical. On the surface, it's an encyclical about AI, but in reality, it goes much deeper than that. Pope Leo has taken the opportunity presented to him by cultural interest in AI to introduce the world to Catholic social teaching and its principles, and I think that's awesome.

[00:00:47]I've said in the past that Catholic social teaching is something Catholics should talk about way more, and Pope Leo seems to agree. In fact, he spent the first 89 paragraphs explaining the history and theology behind Catholic social teaching. Now, if you were looking just for his thoughts on AI, that can feel like quite a bit of throat clearing before getting to the point.

[00:01:05]And I've seen a lot of people complaining that the document is maybe a little longer, or a lot longer, than it needs to be. Such a view isn't like entirely without merit, but I do think it misses the point of what the Pope is trying to do. AI is merely the occasion for the encyclical. AI forces us to ask questions about human dignity and the common good, and I get the sense that it's those things, the central aspects of Catholic social teaching, that Pope Leo wanted to talk about more so than just AI as a technology. And when you pause to think about it, that makes sense, right? I mean, the Pope isn't an expert on large language models or machine learning. And as he insists in the document, if he focused on the technology itself, the encyclical would be obsolete as soon as it hit the press, because the technology is just changing and developing so quickly. The fundamental principles of Catholic social teaching, however, have a much longer shelf life, because they're rooted in the unchanging truths of the gospel. In this video, I want to briefly unpack the main theme of the document before exploring some of the fascinating and frankly unexpected areas that the Pope also covered in this landmark encyclical.

[00:02:09]First though, we'll hit on the main idea. In terms of how we ought to approach AI, Pope Leo's writing shows his Augustinian roots. He places us at a fork in the road. Will we build a new Babel or a new Jerusalem? That is the guiding metaphor throughout the encyclical and it echoes St. Augustine's of two cities in his own magnum opus, The City of God. It's important to realize that this isn't a choice between loving or hating technology though. It's not like a fork in the road between embracing AI or swearing an oath to never touch it. The difference is actually a lot more subtle. Here's how Pope Leo puts it. Therefore, the primary choice is not between a yes or no to technology, but rather between constructing Babel or rebuilding Jerusalem, between a power that claims to dominate the heavens and a people who work together in the presence of God to rebuild the walls of fraternal coexistence. Throughout the document, building Babel represents modes of engaging with technology that arise from a desire to transcend the limits of humanity, degrade human dignity, usurp the place of God, and benefit the strong at the expense of the weak. In contrast, rebuilding Jerusalem is a collaborative effort done for the common good in alignment with the truths of human nature as it is in relationship to God.

[00:03:24]Now, that might all sound a bit abstract. And well, some of that is the point. This isn't a policy brief on AI.

[00:03:31]It's an attempt to apply the principles of Catholic social teaching to AI generally. This can be seen clearly in paragraph 109 where Pope Leo offers a condensed picture of how this works.

[00:03:42]It's worth quoting at length here, so buckle up. He says, "To speak of the universal destination of goods means finding ways of ensuring universal access to most technologies and the education needed to use them. To speak of subsidiarity calls for protecting the ability of communities to make choices and corrections rather than confining their role to mere oversight after the standards have been set elsewhere. To speak of solidarity obliges us to recognize the hidden, often exploited workers who sustain algorithmic systems.

[00:04:13]To speak of justice requires questioning the global distribution of power that decides who in fact can train these models and who is merely subjected to them. Likewise, it means acknowledging that social justice is not only a goal to be safeguarded after technologies are deployed, but a condition that must shape their very design from the outset.

[00:04:32]Now look, if you came into this looking for advice on whether to use Claude's, ChatGPT, or none of the above, you're going to be disappointed. That's just not what's offered here.

[00:04:42]Nor does Pope Leo give explicit instructions around like what kind of tasks AI can and can't be used for.

[00:04:49]Instead, he asks higher-level questions.

[00:04:52]And the fundamental one is expressed in paragraph 129 where he states, "Ultimately, the key question remains the one posed by St. John Paul II. Does AI make human life on Earth more human in every aspect of that life? Does it make it more worthy of man?" This is the animating question because at its core Catholic social teaching is about safeguarding human dignity, which in turn is grounded in the fact that humans are made in the image of God. So, does AI make us more or less truly human?

[00:05:23]Answering that question takes wisdom and discernment, which can be aided by the rich principles found in Catholic social teaching. Principles like the universal destination of goods, subsidiarity, solidarity, and social justice. Even with them though, difficult questions remain. And in such cases, prudence calls for patience. Perhaps one of the more underappreciated yet vitally important parts of this document is a call to move slowly, to not get caught up in the zeitgeist of technological advancement. To that end, Pope Leo calls for slowing things down when everything is accelerating, and of protecting the opportunities for communities still to be able to participate and ask questions. Rebuilding Jerusalem is a slower, more arduous task than constructing a new Babel, but shortcuts here are destined to meet the same end as in the original Babel. In a time of rapid change, the Christian is called not to knee-jerk reaction or uncritical acceptance, but to wise and patient discernment guided by the light of revelation and the resources of our tradition. And on that final note of the resources of tradition, I think that this is an area where Protestants can learn from our Catholic brothers and sisters. They have a rich tradition of reflection in the realm of social teaching. We do in Protestantism as well, but just frankly not to the same extent. And this is an area where we can learn from Catholics and really gain a whole lot. And that's why I'm always happy to kind of sing the praises of Catholic social teaching because I think it's something that we can all benefit from regardless of our tradition. All right, with all that being said, we've kind of gotten the main gist of Magnificat Humanitatis, but it's time now to change gears a bit.

[00:07:02]I want to touch on some surprising, but honestly fascinating parts of the document that you might not hear as many people talking about because, as I said, this encyclical is really about so much more than AI. First on my list of surprising inclusions are a few gems about the importance of women's rights.

[00:07:17]In a time of reactive takes on gender relations within more traditionalist Christian spaces, I really enjoyed reading Pope Leo's strong affirmation of women's rights. Here's how he puts it.

[00:07:27]It is, therefore, not enough simply to state that men and women have equal dignity and rights. It is necessary that this be reflected in concrete decisions, such as in laws, access to employment, education, social and political responsibilities, and the way society listens to and values women's contributions. As long as this gap persists, we cannot say that society truly and fully recognizes that women have the same dignity as men. Now, as a brief aside, I'm genuinely concerned about the direction of our discourse about gender relations online in a lot of these spaces and I think it's going to drive a lot of women away from the church in ways that are ultimately going to be bad and I think we really need to reckon with the fact that just having the most based, the most traditionalist take on gender, frankly like just doesn't line up with where most of our churches are at today and we should have the humility to kind of learn from our leaders on this and I think if you're Catholic, listening to Pope Leo on this would be a good idea. Anyway, for more on this topic, I suggest checking out an article by Claire the Catholic Feminist on Substack, which I've linked in the description down below. Next up, we have the idea of disarmament. Pope Leo describes the phrase "to disarm" as close to his heart. And he sees this connecting to everything from war to mental health to the environment. In essence, we need to create technology that is peaceful in the full sense of that word. By the end of the encyclical though, he moves disarmament away from discussion of AI to focus on modern geopolitics. He warns against a rising support of what's known as realpolitik, in which might makes right and wars are fought not for justice, but for selfish pursuits simply because we can. Given his criticisms of the war in Iran and war generally, this was kind of par for the course in many ways, but I just wasn't expecting it in an encyclical about AI. Nevertheless, frankly, I'm totally here for it.

[00:09:19]The next one is for my doctrine nerds.

[00:09:21]Given what we've seen so far and how the encyclical touches on a range of topics related to Catholic social teaching, the fact that Pope Leo talks about slavery in Magnifica Humanitatis shouldn't be that surprising. However, two things in the discussion of slavery were surprising. First, there's the fact that he apologized for the Catholic Church's role in legitimizing slavery. He says the fact that it took the church 18 centuries to recognize the full incompatibility of slavery with the church's commitment to human dignity is a wound in the Christian memory and he sincerely asks for pardon in the name of the church.

[00:09:56]Now, this isn't entirely without precedent. It's not the first papal apology, but they are still a relatively new phenomenon which we didn't see much before the pontificate of Pope John Paul II. It's a trend I deeply respect and while not contradicting papal infallibility, papal apologies do guard against thinking the church or the Pope can do no wrong. And well, as a Protestant, I think that's important.

[00:10:20]That's not the only interesting thing about the document's discussion of slavery though from a doctrinal perspective. Something that really jumped out to me was the way in which the church's relationship with slavery is marked out as a clear example of how the church's growth in understanding what's broadly called doctrinal development works. Here's how Pope Leo puts it. This development offers a clearer example of the church's growth in understanding the perennial truths of revelation that she safeguards. Although there was not always consistency in practice given that slavery was long tolerated before being unequivocally condemned, there has been a continuous affirmation throughout history of the dignity of every human being created in the image of God even if it took 18 centuries for its full incompatibility with slavery to be explicitly recognized. And it's right after that that he goes on to apologize. Now, this is quite remarkable as it paints a picture of doctrinal development that is really rather malleable. The basic idea is that development is occurring within a context of both continuity and discontinuity. At the level of continuity is the church's affirmation of human dignity. That's consistent.

[00:11:29]However, there is discontinuity between legitimizing slavery and then classing it as something intrinsically evil as Pope John Paul II did and popes since him have done. This means that doctrinal development can involve long precedents in the opposite direction as long as there's a more fundamental continuity.

[00:11:47]Something similar happens with the church's teaching on religious liberty and this was somewhat of a theme and kind of contested issue at Vatican II.

[00:11:54]Conversation for another day, but examples like these suggest that Catholic practice, and I would argue non-infallible teaching as well, is more subject to change than people might think.

[00:12:05]And that's rather interesting to me.

[00:12:07]The final thing I want to highlight in this document is admittedly a bit less of a surprise, but nevertheless still quite interesting. And that is the document's reaffirmation of synodality as vital to the church's life. Now, this reflects a broader trend of Pope Leo kind of carrying the torch for some of Pope Francis's trademark projects. Pope Leo goes as far as to say that in the ecclesial context, the common good takes the form of a synodal approach for mission at the service of the kingdom.

[00:12:36]This and other references make for something of a ringing endorsement of synodality. In total, Pope Francis is referenced more than 50 times in the document, making him a major figure in it. And now, Pope Francis was someone who divided opinion. And one of the central questions when Pope Leo was elected was whether he would continue in his predecessor's footsteps or not.

[00:12:59]Judging from this encyclical, the answer to that question seems to be decisively yes. That is not to say he's a carbon copy. In terms of personality, they're pretty different figures. In time, Pope Leo may reveal more areas where he disagrees with Pope Francis. But for now, he seems to be continuing his project and walking in line with his vision for a synodal church. And to me, hot take perhaps, I think that's quite good news. Anyway, those are my thoughts on Magnifica Humanitatis and its main idea as well as some of the side quests it goes on.

[00:13:31]Overall, I found it to be a really interesting document. It is long, but I think it's well worth reading and of course, you can find it on the internet anywhere, but I'll link it in the description down below. Finally, I want to say if you enjoy videos like these, well, I need your help to keep making them. It's your support that allows this channel to keep going. It is my full-time job now and I'm only able to do that because of the generous support of my patrons. So, if you want to see more videos like these where we give thoughtful takes on theology both contemporary and historical, well, then you can go to patreon.com/gospelsimplicity to support the channel. And when you do that, you get all types of fun perks.

[00:14:06]You get my church history in a year reading guide. You get access to my Gospel Simplicity Book Club where over the summer we'll be reading till we have faces by C.S. Lewis. It should be super fun and then in the fall we'll get back to reading the church fathers. You also get access to office hours with me where we can chat about whatever theological topics you want or really anything you want. And a bunch of other perks as well. So, again, if you want to support the channel, it would mean a lot to me and you can do that by going to patreon.com/gospelsimplicity.

[00:14:32]Anyway, thanks so much and God bless.