Magnifica Humanitas

Notes and highlights from the Pope Leo XIV's encyclical letter

Posted by pilotpirxie on June 22, 2026 · 41 mins read

Recently Pope Leo XIV (Robert Francis Prevost), head of the Catholic Church gave us a new encyclical letter about technology to raise awareness about lack of neutrality in development of such things. It was interesting reading keeping in mind that it is the official word of the Church to its people. Below are my takeaways and highlighted notes from my e-reader.

Technological development and its lack of neutrality are the main themes of encyclical letter. It draws on Leo XIII 19th-century encyclical Rerum Novarum and attempts to adapt it to contemporary realities. There is also a reference to teachings of Pius XI, Pius XII, John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis.

Technology and information can lead to domination of some over others and when it is too concentrated it can become a modern form of slavery (incidentally the Pope asks for forgiveness for the Church’s historical complicity in slavery). Small groups of people can dominate the masses by spreading a message that suits their own interests. This has been compared to “data colonialism” where data is collected in order to gain an advantage over others - either directly through control over people or indirectly, through services and marketing. It is referred to as the “new rare earths”. Whoever possesses them decides who is deemed important and who will receive medicines, investments and protection. It is more about structural advantage than direct blackmail. The themes of transhumanism and posthumanism also emerge, along with a vision of “second-class people” subordinated to the elites. Added to this is the possibility of using technology to wage war on an unprecedented scale, where decisions are made by algorithms that possess neither morality nor a moment’s hesitation - a terrifying path which, according to the Pope, the world is currently heading towards. The Pope rejects the notion that there is such a thing as a “just war”.

In the encyclical, the development of society was compared to the building Tower of Babel and an attempt to achieve divinity at any cost by abandoning the common good (communion) and through the homogenisation of society, control and a blind obsession with power and possibilities. As a counter example, the reconstruction of the walls of Jerusalem from the Book of Nehemiah was presented, where the people, provided they were not hindered, began to look after the common good of their families and, by each rebuilding only the section of the wall closest to their own family, ensured the safety of the entire city and all families.

AI was mentioned there as a factor exacerbating the problem of disinformation and as a tool for creating illusions of relationships between people. As a technology in itself, according to technocrats, it is neither good nor bad. According to the Pope, however, it is not neutral and he does not agree with the view that AI - or more broadly technology - is merely a tool. Technology - in this case, AI - reflects and reinforces the biases of its designers. Algorithms, patents, platforms and data are integral to the universal destination of goods (such as individual freedom, access to water and self-determination).

The Pope recognises that social unrest may soon reach a critical mass and urges business leaders and politicians to respond and look after their staff and citizens. He proposes investing in education, in fostering healthy relationships and in dialogue between the parties. He points out that people may soon lose their jobs and according to the Church, work is a fundamental good - not merely a source of livelihood but a value that contributes to the development of an individual’s character. The loss of a job means the loss of a space for identity, relationships and responsibility. The Pope calls on business people, engineers and politicians to ensure that every design decision reflects a vision of the human person.

Highlights

Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 6 | Location 128-132 | Added on Sunday, May 31, 2026 2:07:29 PM
 
3. In this spirit, Pope Leo XIII published his Encyclical Rerum Novarum in 1891, the 135 th anniversary of which we celebrate with deep gratitude this year. With that document, my beloved predecessor gave impetus to the reflection on society, the economy and politics, which is now known as the “Social Doctrine of the Church.”
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 7 | Location 142-144 | Added on Sunday, May 31, 2026 2:10:10 PM
 
While Leo XIII spoke in his time of “new things” ( rerum novarum), today we cannot limit ourselves simply to repeating his insightful teachings. Instead, we must ask God for the wisdom to interpret the great trends of our time, particularly technological advances.
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 7 | Location 148-149 | Added on Sunday, May 31, 2026 2:11:04 PM
 
At the same time, each phase of progress has also revealed the ambiguity of tools that can cause harm when not oriented toward the good.
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 8 | Location 157-159 | Added on Sunday, May 31, 2026 2:13:55 PM
 
“It must also be recognized that nuclear energy, biotechnology, information technology, knowledge of our own DNA and many other abilities which we have acquired… have given those with the knowledge and especially the economic resources to use them, an impressive dominance over the whole of humanity and the entire world.”
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 8 | Location 156-159 | Added on Sunday, May 31, 2026 2:13:59 PM
 
As Pope Francis warned, we must realistically ask ourselves who holds this power today and how they use it: “It must also be recognized that nuclear energy, biotechnology, information technology, knowledge of our own DNA and many other abilities which we have acquired… have given those with the knowledge and especially the economic resources to use them, an impressive dominance over the whole of humanity and the entire world.”
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 8 | Location 163-164 | Added on Sunday, May 31, 2026 2:14:54 PM
 
For this reason it is necessary to begin a shared discernment process for identifying the spiritual and cultural roots of ongoing transformations.
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 9 | Location 169-171 | Added on Sunday, May 31, 2026 2:15:31 PM
 
In order to answer these questions and discern how to navigate responsibly the era of AI, I would like to bring to mind two scenes from the Bible: the construction of the Tower of Babel (cf. Gen 11:1-9) and the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem (cf. Neh 2-
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 9 | Location 169-171 | Added on Sunday, May 31, 2026 2:15:37 PM
 
In order to answer these questions and discern how to navigate responsibly the era of AI, I would like to bring to mind two scenes from the Bible: the construction of the Tower of Babel (cf. Gen 11:1-9) and the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem (cf. Neh 2-6).
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 9 | Location 174-176 | Added on Sunday, May 31, 2026 2:17:50 PM
 
However, the project concealed a profound danger. It was a project conceived without reference to God, supported by a uniformity that eliminated diversity and that chose homogenization over communion.
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 15 | Location 245-247 | Added on Sunday, May 31, 2026 2:58:52 PM
 
In this regard, artificial intelligence, too, should not be considered as merely yet another theme to be studied or a crisis to be managed, but rather as a development that challenges the categories of Social Doctrine from within, calling for their further development in fidelity to the Gospel.
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 16 | Location 268-269 | Added on Sunday, May 31, 2026 3:03:52 PM
 
This affirmation shows that creation bears the imprint of an original goodness that our human outlook must preserve, cultivate and bring to fulfilment.
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 18 | Location 296-299 | Added on Sunday, May 31, 2026 3:07:14 PM
 
The Church regards all who sincerely seek “truth, goodness and beauty” as companions on the journey and considers them as “precious allies” [12] in defending the dignity of every person and in caring for creation.
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 19 | Location 304-305 | Added on Sunday, May 31, 2026 3:08:11 PM
 
Saint John Paul II recalled that the Church welcomes the contributions of the social sciences in order “to draw from them concrete insights that help her carry out her magisterial office.”
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 21 | Location 335-336 | Added on Sunday, May 31, 2026 5:49:12 PM
 
The Second Vatican Council reminds us that, in virtue of this very catholicity, “each part contributes its own gifts to other parts and to the entire Church.”
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 21 | Location 343-343 | Added on Sunday, May 31, 2026 5:49:47 PM
 
For this reason, he invited each Christian community to interpret
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 21 | Location 340-343 | Added on Sunday, May 31, 2026 5:49:50 PM
 
From this perspective, Saint Paul VI acknowledged that, given the great variety of historical situations, it is unrealistic to think that the Church's Social Doctrine can propose a single response that is valid in all contexts. [21] For this reason, he invited each Christian community to interpret
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 21 | Location 340-343 | Added on Sunday, May 31, 2026 5:50:11 PM
 
From this perspective, Saint Paul VI acknowledged that, given the great variety of historical situations, it is unrealistic to think that the Church's Social Doctrine can propose a single response that is valid in all contexts. [21] For this reason, he invited each Christian community to interpret the reality in its own country with clarity and responsibility.
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 24 | Location 392-397 | Added on Sunday, May 31, 2026 6:21:56 PM
 
While many of the historical conditions described by Leo XIII have changed, at least two insights remain highly relevant today: the primacy of human labor over any mindset focused solely on finance or productivity — with the consequent attention to the people and families most susceptible to exploitation — and the inseparable link between proclaiming the Gospel and pursuing a more just social order. Rerum Novarum thereby continues to remind us that there is no authentic evangelization that does not also affect the structures of human society.
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 28 | Location 468-471 | Added on Sunday, May 31, 2026 6:29:37 PM
 
During the Pontificate of Saint Paul VI, an understanding of peace emerged that was not reduced to the mere absence of war, but took shape within the scope of integral human development. In Populorum Progressio, he described development as a transition from less humane to more humane living conditions.
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 30 | Location 500-503 | Added on Sunday, May 31, 2026 6:31:49 PM
 
Work is not considered simply as a problem to be dealt with or a means of generating income, but a fundamental good for the person, a principle of economic activity and the key to the entire societal question. Through work, human beings bring their freedom, creativity and capacity for cooperation into play, contributing to the cultural and moral elevation of society.
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 39 | Location 651-653 | Added on Sunday, May 31, 2026 6:40:38 PM
 
The Church gratefully acknowledges that “the movement toward the identification and proclamation of human rights is one of the most significant attempts to respond effectively to the inescapable demands of human dignity.”
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 39 | Location 651-657 | Added on Sunday, May 31, 2026 6:40:54 PM
 
The Church gratefully acknowledges that “the movement toward the identification and proclamation of human rights is one of the most significant attempts to respond effectively to the inescapable demands of human dignity.” [64]  In this regard, Saint John Paul II stated that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, proclaimed by the United Nations on 10 December 1948, remains one of the highest expressions of the human conscience of our time. [65] It is “a milestone on the long and difficult path of the human race.”
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 39 | Location 665-669 | Added on Sunday, May 31, 2026 6:41:41 PM
 
Among these rights, the first is the right to life, from conception to its natural end, [70] without which it is impossible to exercise any other right. When this fundamental right is denied — as in the cases of induced abortion, killing of the innocent and euthanasia — we are faced with choices that the Church considers gravely wrong. [71]
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 40 | Location 680-681 | Added on Sunday, May 31, 2026 6:45:17 PM
 
“doubly poor are those women who endure situations of exclusion, mistreatment and violence, since they are frequently less able to defend their rights.”
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 42 | Location 704-706 | Added on Tuesday, June 9, 2026 2:12:42 AM
 
61. In this sense, we can say that the whole is “greater than the sum of its parts” [78] and that, for this very reason, “the mere sum of individual interests is not capable of generating a better world for the whole human family.”
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 42 | Location 714-716 | Added on Tuesday, June 9, 2026 2:13:47 AM
 
In this sense, every person contributes to the building up of one's people through “a slow and arduous effort calling for a desire for integration and a willingness to achieve this through the growth of a peaceful and multifaceted culture of encounter.”
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 46 | Location 773-774 | Added on Tuesday, June 9, 2026 2:20:39 AM
 
It is the responsibility of the political community to create the conditions that allow individuals, families, associations and intermediary organizations to fulfil their mission in society, without being replaced or reduced to mere facilitators.
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 52 | Location 863-868 | Added on Tuesday, June 9, 2026 2:27:38 AM
 
A litmus test for social justice today is the treatment of migrants, refugees and those forced to move due to poverty, violence, climate change and environmental disasters. The way a society treats them reveals whether its sense of justice is driven by fear or by the spirit of fraternity. Pope Francis urged us to see migrants not simply as a problem to be managed, but as a living image of the People of God on the move. [109] They are people with dignity, resources and dreams, who have the right to be treated with respect and to ask to become active members of the societies that welcome them.
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 57 | Location 933-934 | Added on Tuesday, June 9, 2026 2:34:17 AM
 
We are called to reflect on the great “construction sites” of our era and ask: What are we building?
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 58 | Location 952-953 | Added on Tuesday, June 9, 2026 2:36:09 AM
 
More power does not necessarily imply something better. In this respect, the words of Romano Guardini remain relevant: “Contemporary man has not been trained to use power well.”
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 61 | Location 983-983 | Added on Tuesday, June 9, 2026 2:39:04 AM
 
These systems merely imitate certain functions of human intelligence.
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 62 | Location 1000-1001 | Added on Tuesday, June 9, 2026 2:41:02 AM
 
However, for less discerning users, it can also be misleading, creating the illusion of a relationship with a real personal subject.
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 63 | Location 1017-1019 | Added on Tuesday, June 9, 2026 2:43:49 AM
 
Yet there is also a subtler danger, for when AI systems present themselves as neutral and objective, they end up reflecting and reinforcing the stereotypes or ideological bias of their designers and developers.
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 64 | Location 1023-1024 | Added on Tuesday, June 9, 2026 2:45:09 AM
 
From this follows a simple but compelling consequence: we cannot consider AI to be morally neutral.
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 64 | Location 1032-1033 | Added on Tuesday, June 9, 2026 2:45:49 AM
 
This is where accountability becomes crucial: the possibility of identifying who must “account” for decisions, justify them, monitor them and, when necessary, challenge them and remedy any harm caused.
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 65 | Location 1046-1050 | Added on Saturday, June 13, 2026 2:30:26 PM
 
In light of the common good and the universal destination of goods, this raises serious concerns, since small but highly influential groups can shape information and consumption patterns, influence democratic processes and steer economic dynamics to their own advantage, undermining social justice and solidarity among peoples. For this reason, it is essential that the use of AI, especially when it touches on public goods and fundamental rights, be guided by clear criteria and effective oversight, grounded in participation and subsidiarity.
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 66 | Location 1052-1052 | Added on Saturday, June 13, 2026 2:31:50 PM
 
Data is the product of many contributors and should not be treated as something to be sold off or entrusted to a select few.
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 67 | Location 1063-1068 | Added on Saturday, June 13, 2026 2:33:24 PM
 
Disarming AI means freeing it from the mentality of “armed” competition, which today is not limited simply to the military context, but is also an economic and cognitive phenomenon. This entails a race for ever more powerful algorithms and larger datasets, driven by the desire to secure geopolitical or commercial dominance. To disarm means discrediting the assumption that technical power automatically confers the right to govern. To disarm does not mean rejecting technology, but preventing it from dominating humanity. It means freeing technology from monopolistic control and opening it to discussion and debate, therefore making it human-friendly and restoring it to the plurality of human cultures and ways of life.
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 71 | Location 1113-1115 | Added on Saturday, June 13, 2026 2:40:40 PM
 
Our relationship with life seems to be in crisis today. 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.
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 76 | Location 1193-1193 | Added on Saturday, June 13, 2026 2:52:33 PM
 
does AI “make human life on earth "more human" in every aspect of that life?
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 76 | Location 1192-1193 | Added on Saturday, June 13, 2026 2:52:36 PM
 
Ultimately, the key question remains the one posed by Saint John Paul II: does AI “make human life on earth "more human" in every aspect of that life?
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 78 | Location 1214-1214 | Added on Saturday, June 13, 2026 2:54:11 PM
 
Disinformation did not begin with AI, yet today it finds a powerful amplifier in AI.
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 83 | Location 1286-1287 | Added on Saturday, June 13, 2026 3:22:53 PM
 
It is difficult for parents by themselves to resist the influence of business models that monetize attention and time.
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 87 | Location 1332-1333 | Added on Saturday, June 13, 2026 3:28:22 PM
 
For these reasons, work is not simply an instrument; it expresses and enhances the dignity of our lives. It is a requirement of the human condition, a normal path toward maturity, development and personal fulfilment.
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 88 | Location 1349-1350 | Added on Saturday, June 13, 2026 3:29:46 PM
 
In some contexts, there is a legitimate fear of a significant and rapid contraction in available jobs that would create a chain reaction deeply impacting families, young people and local economies.
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 89 | Location 1363-1367 | Added on Saturday, June 13, 2026 3:32:44 PM
 
Work remains a fundamental dimension of the human experience, for not only is it a means of sustenance, but it is also a context for expression, relationships and contributing to the community. Therefore, the problems related to work extend beyond the income necessary for family survival. A society that guarantees employment to only a small fraction of the population, despite having a high level of technical development, risks exposing many to forced inactivity, a lack of responsibility and the absence of daily tasks and stimuli, resulting in human and cultural impoverishment.
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 89 | Location 1368-1370 | Added on Saturday, June 13, 2026 3:33:08 PM
 
For this reason, the Church's Social Doctrine insists that access to work for all must be a high priority for public policies and economic processes, serving as a criterion for evaluating the human quality of any development model.
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 90 | Location 1384-1386 | Added on Saturday, June 13, 2026 3:35:58 PM
 
At this time of transition, it is not enough to react only when jobs disappear; we must oversee the transformation in advance. One viable path is, first of all, to establish social criteria for innovation. Here, every introduction of automation and AI should be accompanied by verifiable measures to protect the employment,
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 90 | Location 1384-1386 | Added on Saturday, June 13, 2026 3:36:16 PM
 
At this time of transition, it is not enough to react only when jobs disappear; we must oversee the transformation in advance. One viable path is, first of all, to establish social criteria for innovation. Here, every introduction of automation and AI should be accompanied by verifiable measures to protect the employment, retraining and participation of workers.
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 92 | Location 1405-1406 | Added on Saturday, June 13, 2026 8:03:26 PM
 
It is important to move beyond the current metrics of development — which for more than eighty years have been tied to the concept of Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 92 | Location 1405-1406 | Added on Saturday, June 13, 2026 8:03:38 PM
 
It is important to move beyond the current metrics of development — which for more than eighty years have been tied to the concept of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) — since these metrics almost systematically neglect aspects essential to the overall wellbeing of people and the environment.
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 94 | Location 1442-1444 | Added on Saturday, June 13, 2026 8:07:33 PM
 
First, transparency and accountability: when data and algorithms influence credit distribution, personnel selection or access to services and opportunities, it is necessary that decisions be understandable, contestable and subject to oversight, so that individuals are not reduced to mere profiles.
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 94 | Location 1442-1446 | Added on Saturday, June 13, 2026 8:07:43 PM
 
First, transparency and accountability: when data and algorithms influence credit distribution, personnel selection or access to services and opportunities, it is necessary that decisions be understandable, contestable and subject to oversight, so that individuals are not reduced to mere profiles. Second, inclusion and access: the benefits of innovation must be paired with investments in skills, infrastructure and essential services to ensure that technology does not widen the gap between those who have and those who have not.
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 94 | Location 1442-1448 | Added on Saturday, June 13, 2026 8:07:54 PM
 
First, transparency and accountability: when data and algorithms influence credit distribution, personnel selection or access to services and opportunities, it is necessary that decisions be understandable, contestable and subject to oversight, so that individuals are not reduced to mere profiles. Second, inclusion and access: the benefits of innovation must be paired with investments in skills, infrastructure and essential services to ensure that technology does not widen the gap between those who have and those who have not. Finally, measures to ensure equity: taxation, social protection and industrial policies must correct the imbalances created by the concentration of wealth and power. Indeed, these criteria do not constitute a curb on innovation; instead they make it civilized and humane.
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 95 | Location 1456-1457 | Added on Saturday, June 13, 2026 8:09:10 PM
 
The devastating impact of unemployment and job insecurity on family structures is well known.
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 96 | Location 1459-1461 | Added on Saturday, June 13, 2026 8:09:30 PM
 
For young people, job insecurity is particularly devastating. As the Bishops of the United States of America have recalled, work is not merely a source of income but a crucial sphere in which identity is formed, friendships and relationships are forged, practical responsibilities are learned and one's vocation is discerned.
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 98 | Location 1494-1501 | Added on Saturday, June 13, 2026 8:12:23 PM
 
At the root of these problems lies a technocratic and post-humanist mentality that tends to regard the human person as an object to be manipulated or a resource to be optimized, [172] removing all safeguards against the unchecked pursuit of profit. What prevails is efficiency, rather than respect for freedom and human dignity. Some post-humanist currents even go so far as to envision “second-class” human beings, subordinate to the interests of elites who consider themselves superior. This troubling prospect becomes all the more serious when combined with technological tools that exponentially increase the capacity for control and selection. Even certain forms of structural indebtedness, which keep entire peoples in conditions of dependence, reflect the same mentality, in new forms, that tolerates relationships of subordination akin to slavery.
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 102 | Location 1542-1545 | Added on Saturday, June 13, 2026 8:14:53 PM
 
Even today, colonialism assumes new forms. It no longer dominates only bodies, but appropriates data, transforming personal lives into exploitable information.  Entire regions, especially those marked by structural fragility and limited geopolitical relevance, are currently subjected to a new mindset of extraction: that of health data, epidemiological profiles, genetic maps and demographic information.
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 102 | Location 1542-1549 | Added on Saturday, June 13, 2026 8:16:26 PM
 
Even today, colonialism assumes new forms. It no longer dominates only bodies, but appropriates data, transforming personal lives into exploitable information.  Entire regions, especially those marked by structural fragility and limited geopolitical relevance, are currently subjected to a new mindset of extraction: that of health data, epidemiological profiles, genetic maps and demographic information. These have become the new “rare earths” of power: vital data which, once aggregated and analyzed, can be used to train predictive models, guide investment strategies, anticipate crises and, above all, determine who and what is deemed to matter. Those who control the health data of entire peoples — often collected under the pretext of aid, research or innovation — possess a structural leverage over the future, for they can shape needs and markets. They can also decide, before others, to whom medicines, investments and protections will be allocated.
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 110 | Location 1658-1659 | Added on Saturday, June 13, 2026 8:27:54 PM
 
It is much easier to start a war than to stop it and yet, discussion on conflict prevention remains tragically marginal.
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 111 | Location 1664-1668 | Added on Saturday, June 13, 2026 8:28:37 PM
 
The Holy See has recently observed that the growing ease with which autonomous weapons systems can be deployed makes war more “feasible” and less subject to human control. This violates the principle that armed force should be used only as a last resort in cases of legitimate self-defense. [183] For this reason, the development and use of AI in warfare must be subject to the most rigorous ethical constraints, to guarantee respect for human dignity and the sanctity of life and to avoid a race to develop such arms.
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 112 | Location 1684-1689 | Added on Saturday, June 13, 2026 8:29:53 PM
 
These criteria give rise to certain non-negotiable requirements. First, all systems used in a war setting must guarantee the possibility of retracing and reconstructing decision-making processes, so that accountability and blame are not collapsed into “the machine.” Second, the decision to use lethal force cannot be delegated to opaque or automated processes, but must remain under effective, self-aware and responsible human control. Finally, it is imperative to establish a shared framework — also at the international level — in order to curb the technological arms race and ensure robust protection for civilians and the infrastructures necessary for their survival.
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 118 | Location 1761-1763 | Added on Saturday, June 13, 2026 8:33:36 PM
 
“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.”
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 124 | Location 1840-1844 | Added on Saturday, June 13, 2026 8:39:48 PM
 
Cyberspace too has become a battleground. Cyberattacks, data manipulation and campaigns of influence, orchestrated with the help of AI, can destabilize entire countries even before open armed conflict erupts. Moreover, in this area, the attribution of responsibility is often uncertain. When it is unclear who carried out an attack, the risk of disproportionate reaction, miscalculation and escalation increases. For this reason, diplomacy must be capable of operating effectively in this new environment, negotiating shared regulations on the use of digital technologies, in order to protect civilians and the most vulnerable from “invisible” yet real forms of violence.
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 130 | Location 1931-1931 | Added on Saturday, June 13, 2026 8:44:52 PM
 
Let us remain faithful to the truth!
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 131 | Location 1942-1942 | Added on Saturday, June 13, 2026 8:45:04 PM
 
Let us invest in education, beginning with ourselves!
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 131 | Location 1949-1949 | Added on Saturday, June 13, 2026 8:45:24 PM
 
Let us cultivate relationships!
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Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Leo XIV Magnific
- Your Highlight on page 132 | Location 1954-1955 | Added on Saturday, June 13, 2026 8:45:34 PM
 
Let us love justice and peace!