In his first papal encyclical, “Magnifica Humanitas,” Pope Leo XIV has issued a sweeping document that invites us to consider our individual and communal responsibilities within the changing dynamics of power and justice that the era of artificial intelligence has wrought. When discerning our role and our work in this moment, we must always, Leo reminds us, keep the dignity of all human beings foremost in our minds.
There has been an onslaught of essays, articles and hot takes on the matter — I invite you to read the encyclical itself and perhaps to spend some time with a few of the reflections our wider Jesuit community has written in response.
Here, I would simply invite you to ponder a handful of helpful passages that orient our prayer toward the heart of Leo’s message. Think of this as a brief retreat, challenging you to move from an inward-facing orientation to an outward embrace of others.
The First Movement
Consider this: We are tempted throughout our busy days to grasp at those things we are told will ease our existence: more money will buy us happiness; finding the “right” people with whom to associate will give us a leg up; scrolling through our feeds to pass quick judgment on people, places and nuanced situations provides us with easy sound bites with which to make sense of an otherwise complicated world.
Consider this: We are tempted to comfort. We are tempted to believe that anything that causes discomfort is an ill to be shunned.
Pope Leo invites us along a different path:
We must, then, avoid 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. The risk of dehumanization — of building a future that excludes God and reduces the other to a means — is an ancient and ever-new temptation that today takes on a technical guise. (10)
Reflect: What idols am I clinging to? How do such idols make me less free, less human? Am I nudging God out of the picture as a result? Am I discarding God’s people and God’s creation? Do my choices serve others — or do they simply serve to promote me?
The Second Movement
Consider this: We are tempted to masquerade our “listening” as a mere biding of time — we listen not for others’ happiness, hurts or hopes, but rather for the opportune moment into which to inject our own opinion. In so doing, we turn listening into an instance of self-promotion; we fail to make it one of community.
Consider this: When we fail to truly hear the words of others — near and far — we fail to hear the words of Christ, speaking still.
Pope Leo writes:
Listening to the “many voices” is no mere sociological exercise, but instead requires spiritual discernment. Guided by the Spirit, the People of God come to recognize in cultural and social transformations both the signs of the presence of Christ, who comes and guides history toward its fulfilment, and those aberrations that obscure his face. (22)
Reflect: How is Christ speaking to me in this moment through the many voices I encounter each day? How might I better discern Christ’s message — and my unique vocation? How am I called to collaborate with others and God in co-creating a world of justice and peace?
The Third Movement
Consider this: We are tempted to make decisions that serve only our own interests, or the interests of those in our immediate circles. We are tempted to ignore the ripple effects of our decisions, how our actions necessarily affect the lives of others, near and far.
Pope Leo reminds us:
Recognizing that every man and woman possesses an inalienable dignity, together with rights that no human power can betray or nullify, requires us to shape the way we live together, including our economic and political choices… For a Christian, going beyond the narrow confines of one’s own interests and committing oneself, within the limits of one’s ability, to the common good is a non-negotiable value, as is the promotion of life. (59)
Reflect: Where is the horizon of my decision-making “narrowed” by my own self-interest? Do I make decisions — big or small — that betray the dignity of my fellow human beings? Where is God inviting me to expand my horizon so as to see the fullness of God’s dream for creation?
Close: Spend time this week praying with these movements and with the encyclical itself. Consider writing a mission statement for yourself in this moment, inspired by this mini retreat and the pope’s encyclical. Conclude your time with Pope Leo’s clarion call to remember the task set before us:
Each generation inherits the task of shaping its own era, of guiding history to become a place where the dignity of every person is safeguarded, justice is promoted and fraternity is made possible. Yet every era also runs the risk of creating an inhumane and more unjust world. (1)
I invite you, too, to hear these words of Scripture as spoken by God directly to you, echoing the decisions we are called to pray on throughout “Magnifica Humanitas.” In Deuteronomy, we hear these words:
I call heaven and earth today to witness against you: I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live. (30:19)
Let us pray for the grace to choose life — the full human flourishing of all people now and to come — in every decision we make.
Amen.
