Mild & Bold

As promised from the beginning of his papacy, Leo XIV has given us an encyclical letter that continues the legacy of Rerum novarum, serving as an act of aggiornamento to address the economic conditions of 2026 as Leo XIII addressed the conditions of 1891. Magnifica humanitas makes this connection explicit by naming artificial intelligence as one of the “new things” of this era—though as Leo XIII certainly knew, res novae can also be translated as an idiom for “revolutions.” While Leo XIV is no wild-eyed prophet of revolution, his observations on artificial intelligence are embedded in a broader argument with radical implications for Catholic thought about political economy. But this is not a letter simply about economics. Along with its discussion of the common good and the “idolatry of profit,” Magnifica humanitas also advances views of the Church’s teaching authority and engagement with the secular world that may amount to a revolution in their own right—or at least a substantial reimagining of the tradition of Catholic social thought that Leo XIV inherits from his predecessors. Without pretending to find a fully developed ecclesiology in Magnifica humanitas (this encyclical is, after all, Leo’s development of Rerum novarum, not of Gaudium et spes), we can at least identify a few themes that shed light on Leo’s thought about the Church and its mission.