By Inés San Martín, Editor of MISSION Magazine
Near the beginning of Magnifica Humanitas, Pope Leo XIV pauses amid his reflections on artificial intelligence and the digital revolution to ask a deeply human question: “Where are we going? Toward what goal do we wish to orient ourselves? What direction should we choose as people and as a human community?”
Those are missionary questions.
They are the questions the Church has been asking since the Risen Christ sent his disciples to the ends of the earth. And they are precisely the questions Pope Leo XIV places at the center of his first encyclical, signed at Saint Peter’s on May 15, 2026.
Magnifica Humanitas (“Magnificent Humanity”) will be widely described as the Catholic Church’s document on artificial intelligence. That description is true — but incomplete. The subtitle the Pope chose, “On safeguarding the human person in the time of artificial intelligence,” tells us that this is not simply a text about technology. It is a reflection on evangelization, human dignity, and the Church’s mission in a world increasingly shaped by digital power.
For Catholics who care about mission, the document has a great deal to say.
Pope Leo XIV deliberately chose the 135th anniversary of Rerum Novarum to sign Magnifica Humanitas. In 1891, Pope Leo XIII confronted a world transformed by the industrial revolution — a world where workers were exploited, wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, and the Church was told to remain silent about economic and political realities.
He refused.
Leo XIV sees a similar transformation unfolding today. The world is being reorganized not by factories and railroads, but by artificial intelligence, algorithms, data systems, and digital platforms that increasingly shape how people work, communicate, learn, and even understand themselves.
And once again, the Church refuses to stand on the sidelines.
Leo XIV recalls the insight at the heart of Rerum Novarum: “The proclamation of the Gospel cannot overlook the concrete lives of people.”
That sentence is foundational for understanding the entire encyclical — and it should sound familiar to anyone involved in missionary work.
The Pontifical Mission Societies exist because evangelization is never abstract. The Gospel is proclaimed among real people, in real communities, shaped by economic, political, cultural, and now digital realities. Missionaries have always entered the world as it is, not as they wish it to be.
Today, that world includes the digital environment.
The encyclical opens with two biblical images that frame everything that follows.
The first is the Tower of Babel: humanity attempting to build power and unity without God, resulting in confusion, domination, and fragmentation.
The second is Nehemiah rebuilding Jerusalem: a patient, prayerful, communal effort in which families work together, each rebuilding their own section of the wall.
Pope Leo XIV says humanity faces the same choice today.
“The primary choice is not between a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to technology, but rather between constructing Babel or rebuilding Jerusalem,” Leo XIV writes.
This is one of the encyclical’s most important missionary insights.
The digital world is not simply a neutral tool or communications platform. It is a cultural territory shaped by particular values, assumptions, and power structures. It forms consciences, influences relationships, and shapes how people understand truth, freedom, and even human dignity.
The question is not whether the Church will engage this territory. The Church is already there because billions of people are already there.
The question is how.
Throughout Magnifica Humanitas, Pope Leo XIV repeatedly insists that evangelization and concern for human dignity cannot be separated.
Citing Pope Francis, he recalls that “the Christian proclamation has an intrinsic social dimension.” The Gospel is not only about personal spirituality detached from the realities people face every day. It necessarily touches the structures that shape human life.
The encyclical traces this conviction through the history of Catholic Social Teaching — from Leo XIII’s defense of workers, to Vatican II’s call for the Church to engage the modern world, to Pope Francis’ insistence that the cry of the poor must be heard.
One passage stands out: “There is no authentic evangelization that does not also affect the structures of human society.”
For missionary communities around the world, this is not theory. Missionaries encounter the concrete realities affecting peoples every day: poverty, migration, conflict, exploitation, isolation, and now the growing influence of digital systems that can either include or exclude entire populations.
One of the most striking sections of the encyclical concerns power.
Pope Leo XIV notes that technological development is increasingly driven not by governments or local communities, but by “private, often transnational” actors whose resources and influence “surpass those of many Governments.”
This reality is already visible in many mission territories.
Across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Oceania, digital infrastructure is arriving rapidly — often shaped far from the communities where it is being implemented. Platforms, algorithms, and online systems carry assumptions about truth, identity, freedom, and human value that may not reflect the dignity-centered vision of the Gospel.
The pope calls for “shared discernment” about these transformations: “It is necessary to begin a shared discernment process for identifying the spiritual and cultural roots of ongoing transformations.”
That language matters. Discernment is deeply missionary. It reflects a Church that listens before speaking, accompanies before judging, and seeks to understand how the Holy Spirit is already at work in peoples and cultures.
At the heart of Magnifica Humanitas is a clear and forceful defense of the human person.
The encyclical insists that human dignity is not earned through productivity, intelligence, usefulness, or efficiency. Every person possesses dignity simply because he or she is created and loved by God.
“The value of persons, however, does not depend on what they achieve or produce,” Leo XIV writes.
This affirmation directly challenges the logic of many digital systems, which increasingly sort, rank, and evaluate people according to performance, behavior, or data profiles.
For mission territories — especially communities that are poor, remote, vulnerable, or historically marginalized — this has enormous implications.
The communities most likely to be excluded or negatively affected by algorithmic systems are often the very communities the Church accompanies through missionary work. Defending the dignity of the poor today also means paying attention to how technology can deepen inequality or invisibility.
One passage in the encyclical will resonate deeply in many parts of the world: “Even today, colonialism assumes new forms. It no longer dominates only bodies, but appropriates data, transforming personal lives into exploitable information.”
For many mission territories, these words will sound painfully familiar.
Pope Leo XIV warns that vulnerable regions can become sources of extractable data — health records, genetic information, demographic profiles — controlled by outside powers for economic or political advantage.
This concern is not disconnected from missionary history. The encyclical openly acknowledges the Church’s own painful failures, including complicity in slavery, describing them as “a wound in Christian memory.”
But the pope does not dwell in guilt. He calls the Church to vigilance: “What we have learned must be translated into discernment and responsibility in the present.”
That is a profoundly missionary challenge.
The encyclical ultimately does not end in fear. It ends in mission.
Pope Leo XIV writes: “We must consider the digital world as a new continent to be evangelized, one that requires generous missionaries who are mature in the faith.”
The phrase recalls the great missionary history of the Church — missionaries who crossed oceans, learned languages, entered unfamiliar cultures, and proclaimed the Gospel through presence, humility, and love.
The pope is saying the digital world now requires the same courage.
Not tourists. Not commentators shouting from a distance. Missionaries.
Catholics willing to enter the digital environment with theological depth, human sensitivity, patience, and a genuine desire to accompany others.
Toward the end of the encyclical, Pope Leo XIV returns to the image of Nehemiah rebuilding Jerusalem “brick by brick.”
He says Christians today are called to enter “the construction sites of history” — schools, media, institutions, local communities, and even tech companies — to rebuild what is fractured and protect what is threatened.
That is missionary language.
The Pontifical Mission Societies have always believed that the Gospel must be present wherever human dignity is most vulnerable and wherever hope is most needed. Magnifica Humanitas reminds us that this mission now includes the digital world.
The construction site is open. And the new continent awaits its missionaries.
"With the same faith as Mary, 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," Pope Leo wrote, closing the document.
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Read Pope Leo’s Encyclical in https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/encyclicals/documents/20260515-magnifica-humanitas.html
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