In an interview with Vatican News, the Archbishop of Chicago, Cardinal Blase Cupich, says Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical ‘Magnifica humanitas’ recognizes that “new technology has the potential to overtake our capacity to control it, and the Pope is giving us a wake-up call to seize this moment with urgency.”
By Deborah Castellano Lubov
“This document provides us with a new lens to read the entire Social Doctrine of the Church.”
In an interview with Vatican News, Cardinal Blase Cupich, Archbishop of Chicago, reflected on Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical, Magnifica humanitas, on safeguarding the human person in the age of artificial intelligence.
The Cardinal discussed the Pope’s warning against technological self-sufficiency, the social implications of artificial intelligence, and the relevance of Catholic social teaching in the digital age.
Cardinal Cupich, what do you see as the significance of Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical, Magnifica humanitas?
The document’s principal contribution comes in the Holy Father’s challenge to humanity to make a choice: either to build the new Jerusalem or another Tower of Babel.
The first image is anchored in the story of the prophet Nehemiah, who brings families together after the exile. As the Pope writes, Nehemiah “assigned each of them a section of the wall to rebuild, listened to their concerns, coordinated their efforts and addressed any opposition.” This city comes to birth not through the initiative of one powerful individual, but through “the shared responsibility of all: men, women, priests, artisans, heads of households and young people all play a part. It is an undertaking with God at the center, which rebuilds relationships before rebuilding with stones.”
This is a harmony that arises when people assume their proper role and recognize that their strength comes from the Lord.
The Tower of Babel, on the other hand, represents a city aspiring to reach heaven without God’s blessing. Built on pride and claims of self-sufficiency, communication breaks down, and people no longer understand one another.
Chicago is globally recognized as a center of business, technology, innovation, and industry. What reaction are you seeing to this text, which also engages the tech world and calls for safeguarding humanity in the age of artificial intelligence?
The first news reports in Chicago focused on the reactions of university students, and we need to listen carefully to them because this new technology will have profound consequences for their future.
From those interviewed, students were very laudatory of the Holy Father and expressed a keen interest in reading the document.
Which of Pope Leo’s concerns in the text resonates most with you? What would you most like people in your Archdiocese to take away from it?
This document provides us with a new lens through which to read the entire Social Doctrine of the Church. The Pope makes this clear in the first chapter, where he offers a brilliant review of the initiatives of the Popes since Leo XIII. Pope Leo XIV is clear that this is Church doctrine and not simply a body of teaching that Catholics may choose to accept or ignore.
Thinking of Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum novarum, which Pope Leo XIV frequently references, do you believe the digital revolution can be compared, in terms of its scale and impact, to the Industrial Revolution?
There are similarities, but there are also important differences.
This new technology has the potential to overtake our capacity to control it, and the Pope is giving us a wake-up call to seize this moment with urgency.
