Christian Humanism has always raised its voice and activated its pen to guard the human person, warning of proposals that can be reversed against them. This article will briefly show ten threats to the dignity of the person, from the last six centuries and the responses that have balanced these ups and downs of history.
The reduction of the human being to pure reason, without faith (15th-16th century). The Renaissance humanists Erasmus of Rotterdam and Thomas More warned of the fracture of knowledge and moral conscience, insisting that the human person is a single unity of reason, freedom, and spirit; separating it produces fanaticism and emptiness.
Slavery and the denial of humanity to entire peoples (16th century). Fray Bartolomé de las Casas and Fray Antón de Montesinos responded that human dignity is universal, therefore, indigenous people have a soul.
Exploitation of the worker by industrial capitalism (19th century). Pope Leo XIII (1891) in Rerum Novarum, denounced the excesses and injustices of capitalism and liberalism; He proposed the participation of Christians in social life to universalize the common good, justice and solidarity and made, in the modern world, the first great defense of the human person over the market, affirming that the worker is not a commodity.
Totalitarianism (1930-1940). Jacques Maritain (1936), responding to fascism, Nazism and Stalinism (anthropocentric humanism), proposed Integral Humanism: the preservation of the dignity of the human person against any collective absolutism.
War and the massive destruction of human lives (1940-1960). Pope Pius XII used radio addresses to speak to the world during World War II. Pope John XXIII wrote Pacem in Terris (1963), where he denounced the arms race and war as absolute denials of human dignity. He stated that peace is not the absence of war, but rather a human condition.
Structural poverty and underdevelopment as a violation of dignity (1960-1970). Pope Paul VI in Populorum Progressio (1967) announced that “development is the new name for peace” and denounced that hunger, ignorance and misery are not natural fatalities, but historical injustices. He proposed comprehensive development: economic, moral and spiritual.
Marxism and the reduction of the human being to its social class dimension (1970-1980). Pope John Paul II, with Laborem Exercens (1981) and Centesimus Annus (1991), responded to Marxist ideology, stating that the human being is not defined by his position in the productive process. The person is always the subject, not the object of history, therefore, he precedes the class, the party and the State. His texts are supported by his experience lived in Poland.
Moral relativism and the loss of the sense of truth (1980-2010). Together with John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI in Veritatis Splendor (1993) and Caritatis in Veritate (2009) identified ethical relativism as a threat to human dignity, because without truth freedom remains empty and the person is at the mercy of the strongest.
The ecological crisis and the destruction of the “common home” (2010-2020). For Pope Francis in Laudato Si’ (2015), the environmental crisis is part of the contemporary socioeconomic crisis. He proposes an “integral ecology” and affirms that the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor cannot be separated.
Artificial Intelligence and the risk of digital dehumanization (2026). With Magnifica Humanitas (2026), Pope Leo XIV warns that technique, the market and individualism threaten to reduce the human person to data, function or algorithm; affirms that the human being is always an end and a subject, never a means or code.
Guarding the human person is the common thread of every authentic civilization: when history forgets the human being, humanity itself is at risk.
The author is rector of the UCNE and president of the ADRU
