The encyclical Magnifica Humanitas opens with two feminine images: two models of the city embodied in women—the “Virgin Daughter of Babylon” and the “Daughter of Jerusalem.” In Scripture, the city often appears as a woman. Jerusalem is the Mother of Peoples: “It shall be said of Zion, ‘This one and that one were born in her'” (Ps 87:5), and she is also the Bride, “coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband” (Rev 21:2). The city thus emerges as a living fabric, not merely an aggregation of buildings, but as a network of relationships capable of generating and nurturing life.
Every city, in its own way, embodies a communal technological project. Babel undertakes a great enterprise, deciding to build a tower whose top reaches heaven (Gen 11:4). It is a magnificent project, envisioning one language, one technology, one direction. “Babel thus reveals the limits of any effort that, however grandiose, arises from self-affirmation, sacrifices human dignity for efficiency and aspires to reach heaven without God’s blessing” (MH, 7). By contrast, Jerusalem, in the time of Nehemiah, represents the opposite model: it too is a work under construction, but it is born from the shared responsibility of the whole people. ” It is an undertaking with God at the centre, which rebuilds relationships before rebuilding with stones.” (MH, 8). For this reason, it is able to welcome diversity and create a common language—not one of uniformity, but of harmony.
Pope Leo XIV revisits the great themes of the Church’s Social Doctrine, devoting the extensive first and second chapters of the encyclical to principles that remain fully relevant today as we enter the Fourth Industrial Revolution, driven by Artificial Intelligence (AI). The third chapter is dedicated entirely to AI, offering criteria and guidance for discerning its wise use and the direction we wish to give it in the light of the principles of Catholic Social Teaching.
The term artificial intelligence encompasses many different realities that nonetheless share certain common features. Today, AI has quietly entered our daily lives and is present in countless areas. Thanks to AI, machines perform tasks and calculations at astonishing speed, comparing millions of data points, generating texts, and carrying out actions based on probabilistic calculations. They imitate certain aspects of human intelligence—sometimes remarkably well—but they are not intelligent. They do not understand what they produce, “for they lack the affective, relational and spiritual perspective through which human beings grow in wisdom” (MH, 99). The temptation of our time is to make the technocratic paradigm—the project of Babel—the dominant criterion governing the use of AI: optimising resources in order to increase profits while reducing human costs.
The Holy Father gives particular attention to several areas in which AI already exercises enormous influence. First is the dissemination and safeguarding of truth in an era dominated by social media platforms controlled by algorithms, where distinguishing truth from falsehood is becoming increasingly difficult. Then there is the world of work, where AI is already causing profound upheaval through mass layoffs as workers are replaced by automated systems, while making access to employment more difficult for young people and women. The Pope also highlights the defence of freedom against new forms of digital dependence, as well as the trafficking of women, migrants, and children, who are treated as commodities in a merciless marketplace. Finally, he addresses warfare and the grave danger of delegating decisions about armed conflict to AI systems capable of autonomously selecting military targets without regard for civilian casualties. No, there is no such thing as a just war. War is always a defeat for humanity.
In response to these challenges, the encyclical proposes the civilisation of love. It is not true that we live in a world governed solely by the Darwinian logic of the survival of the fittest. Nature itself offers countless examples of cooperation among species sharing the same habitat. Why, then, should it not be possible for nations to seek cooperation in the pursuit of peace rather than struggle for domination?
Each of us is called to play our part with a spirit of realistic hope. “The spirituality I wish to commend is that of the “wise architect” who, driven by hope for the Kingdom of God, is committed to building the world for the common good” (MH, 236). The women of WUCWO are likewise called to participate in the building of this Jerusalem. To illustrate this vocation, the Pope uses an image that speaks especially to us: with the faith of Mary, “poet and prophet,” he writes, “let us become “weavers of hope” in our world, sharing who we are and what we have, so that the presence of Jesus may grow among us and his Kingdom take shape” (MH, 245).
Mons. Melchor José Sánchez de Toca y Alameda – WUCWO Ecclesiastical Assistant
