Mangifica Humanitas is Brilliant Application of Catholic Social Doctrine

Magnifica Humanitas is also addressing challenges presented by new things—“res novae”—as Leo XIV puts it in Latin. But these new things are not the processes of production and the rise of new mechanical technology. Rather, the chief concern of Pope Leo’s worthy successor to Rerum Novarum is the rise of artificial technology in particular, and the rapid digital transformation of human institutions more generally. The teaching that Leo XIV applies to these challenges is not new; it is as venerable as those doctrines applied by Leo XIII in 1891, which themselves are rooted in the very pages of Sacred Scripture, beginning with the first chapter of Genesis.