Why Protestants should read the pope’s encyclical

Pope Leo XIV's first encyclical, "Magnifica Humanitas," declares artificial intelligence the defining "new thing" of the modern age and critiques the economic and political systems that produced it. The document, released on the 135th anniversary of "Rerum Novarum," shifts the church's primary social interlocutor from the nation-state to transnational corporations, arguing that all Christians must wrestle with the moral implications of technological power. The encyclical invites people of all faiths to participate in shaping a technological future that neither rejects innovation nor surrenders human dignity to systems beyond democratic accountability.

Why Protestants should read the pope’s encyclical RNS — Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical declares artificial intelligence as the “rerum novarum,” the “new thing,” of our age. And while artificial intelligence is the encyclical’s stated focus, its analysis reaches far beyond AI itself into the broader social order that created the technology in the first place — presenting a critique of economic power that all Christians should wrestle with. As an Episcopal priest and theology professor, let me begin by acknowledging that Protestants have historically had a complicated relationship with papal encyclicals. Beyond the obvious historical divisions, the very understanding of “church” that grounds Catholic social teaching is not ours. The concept of a magisterium does not bind us, and not all of the doctrinal moves made in the document are ones that we would necessarily share. And yet, “Magnifica Humanitas” is a significant document that deserves careful attention, partly because it is written in a tone that is both humble and ambitious. The encyclical explicitly states that the church “does not claim to possess a monopoly on truth” and describes Catholic social teaching itself as “a process of shared discernment” rather than a handbook of fixed principles mechanically applied to the world. It invites nations, corporations, communities and people of all faiths to participate together in shaping a technological future that neither rejects innovation nor surrenders the human person to systems of power beyond democratic accountability. The encyclical is fundamentally concerned with the post-Cold War world shaped by market globalization, technological centralization and unequal consequences for both the global poor and the environment. The document certainly addresses AI’s immediate dangers: deepfakes, disinformation, autonomous weapons systems, algorithmic bias, labor displacement and the hidden human labor that powers supposedly “automated” systems. But ultimately the encyclical asks a larger question. What kind of political and economic world produces these technologies in the form we now know, and who bears the costs? To understand why this matters, it helps to understand Catholic social teaching itself. Though often unfamiliar to Protestants, Catholic social teaching is arguably the most continuously developed body of social theology in modern Christianity. It begins with Leo XIII’s reflections on industrial labor; develops through Pius XI’s articulation of subsidiarity, John XXIII’s defense of human rights, the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, Paul VI’s vision of integral human development, John Paul II’s theology of solidarity and Benedict XVI’s reflections on charity and truth; and continues with Francis’ ecological concerns in “Laudato Si’.” Indeed, many of the moral categories Protestants now use almost instinctively, terms like dignity, solidarity, social justice and the common good, entered ecumenical Christian discourse largely through Roman Catholic theological reflection. When many Protestants speak about justice today, we are often unknowingly speaking with Catholic theological grammar. What is genuinely innovative about “Magnifica Humanitas” is not simply its concern about AI, nor its measured openness toward technological development. Rather, it is a structural shift in how the document understands power itself. The encyclical suggests that the church’s primary social interlocutor is no longer exclusively the nation-state, but increasingly the sprawling transnational corporations that now shape much of modern life. The pope signed “Magnifica Humanitas” on May 15, 2026, on the 135th anniversary of “Rerum Novarum,” deliberately placing the document within the tradition of Catholic social teaching that began with the Roman Catholic Church’s response to the industrial revolution. Since “Rerum Novarum,” Catholic social teaching has generally assumed that the state served as the primary counterweight to concentrated economic power. Governments regulated markets, mediated the common good and restrained private interests. “Magnifica Humanitas” suggests that this arrangement no longer adequately describes reality. “In the past,” the document observes, “it was largely up to the State to guide and direct innovation. Today, however, the main drivers of development are private, often transnational, parties that are endowed with resources and the capacity to intervene that surpass those of many Governments.” That is a remarkable thing to find in a papal encyclical. What this observation offers is something more interesting than either simplistic technological optimism or blanket anti-tech alarmism. “Magnifica Humanitas” proposes a theological framework for resisting tech-oligarchic power that is neither libertarian nor technocratic. It neither tells us to “let it rip” nor to “regulate everything.” Instead, it offers a disciplined way of asking who decides on behalf of whom in an AI-shaped world. Bookending the text is a striking biblical contrast between Babel and Jerusalem. The question, the encyclical insists, is not whether humanity should embrace or reject technology altogether. The deeper question concerns what kind of technological civilization we are constructing. Are we building systems ordered toward domination, uniformity, surveillance and self-magnification, like in Babel? Or are we building systems that strengthen communities, preserve human dignity and serve the common good, like in the Bible’s Jerusalem? The fight, in other words, is not really against the algorithms. It is against the oligarchs. I have been studying theology and technology for more than 20 years, often using science fiction as a dialogue partner for questions that can otherwise feel abstract or distant from ordinary life. Reading “Magnifica Humanitas,” I repeatedly found myself thinking of William Gibson and Neal Stephenson: posthumanism, autonomous warfare, transnational corporate sovereignty and technologically mediated forms of salvation and domination. There is something genuinely surreal about reading a papal encyclical over morning coffee and encountering discussions of autonomous weapons systems and posthumanism on the Vatican website. Twenty years ago, this would have sounded absurd. Today, it sounds descriptive. And perhaps that is what struck me most while reading the document. The questions of speculative fiction have become the questions of our lived political reality. But rather than leaving us trapped inside a techno-dystopia, the encyclical concludes on a note of solidarity and hope that refuses the fantasy that history is ultimately decided only by those behind the code. Near the end of the document, Leo XIV quotes J.R.R. Tolkien: “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.” Cyberpunk fiction often imagines salvation or damnation arriving through systems so large that ordinary people become irrelevant. Tolkien’s moral imagination works in almost exactly the opposite direction. The real work of preserving the world happens locally, concretely and relationally — not by mastering history, but by tending the fields nearest to us. And not by escaping creaturely limits, but by inhabiting them faithfully. That may be the deepest challenge “Magnifica Humanitas” poses both to Silicon Valley triumphalism and to AI apocalypse rhetoric alike. The problem is not simply the machine. It is the temptation toward Babel: the concentration of language, power, capital and imagination into systems that no longer recognize human beings except as inputs, outputs, consumers or data points. Against that temptation, the encyclical proposes something almost stubbornly unfashionable: subsidiarity, solidarity, shared discernment, limits, community and the common good. In other words, the answer to AI is neither anti-technology retreat nor surrender to technological inevitability. It is the recovery of politics, moral responsibility and theological imagination at a human scale. And perhaps that is why Tolkien appears at the end of the document. The Shire is not important because it is powerful. It matters because it is worth protecting from those who believe that power itself is greatness. In the end, the encyclical circles back to one of the oldest theological questions imaginable: What kind of world are we building, and who is it for? That question cannot be answered by engineers alone, markets alone or even states alone. And Leo XIV’s deepest warning may simply be this: Christians are not free to leave the answer to the oligarchs. The Rev. Michael W. DeLashmutt is dean of the Chapel of the Good Shepherd and senior vice president at the General Theological Seminary in New York City, where he also serves as associate professor of theology. His most recent book is “ A Lived Theology of Everyday Life.” The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.