In what ways does Pope Leo XIV draw on the thoughts and teachings of St. Augustine in Magnifica Humanitas?

With his first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, Pope Leo XIV beautifully aligns himself with traditional Catholic Social Teaching and Pope Francis, while grounding his vision in the theology of St. Augustine. The result is a groundbreaking defense of the human person in our new age of artificial intelligence. Leo resurrects Augustine’s famous warning that human history is a constant struggle between two loves fighting for our hearts (MH, 130). He specifically equates the unrestricted love of self, driven by pride and arrogance, with the scriptural metaphor of the Tower of Babel. In this story, the builders tried to create “a single language, a single technology, a single direction” without reference to God. This attempt by human ingenuity alone resulted in cultivating a “uniformity that eliminated diversity” and “homogenization over communion” (MH, 7).

In contrast, the properly oriented love of God and neighbor enables authentic unity capable of creating a civilization that preserves human dignity without dehumanization. In building this civilization, Leo addresses both the need for humanity to not fear the limitations of our finitude and the profound human desire for self-transcendence.

As in “Drawing New Maps of Hope,” the apostolic letter on Catholic Education, Pope Leo draws on an Augustinian spirituality that highlights fundamental desiring in the shared search for truth. Our desire for truth, or wonder, reflects humanity’s transcendent origin and end. That we are created in the image and likeness of the Triune God (Genesis 1:26-27) distinguishes human knowing from mere data processing. Pope Leo remarks: “So-called artificial intelligences do not undergo experiences, do not possess a body, do not feel joy or pain, do not mature through relationships and do not know from within what love, work, friendship or responsibility mean. Nor do they have a moral conscience, since they do not judge good and evil, grasp the ultimate meaning of situations, or bear responsibility for consequences” (99).

—Tim Hanchin, PhD, Associate Professor of Theology