Orthodox Observer, June 2026
On May 15, Pope Leo XIV signed a document that grew out of a Vatican conversation on artificial intelligence and ethics that had been developing for nearly a decade. He presented it to the world ten days later, on a Monday in late May, as “Magnifica Humanitas” —“Magnificent Humanity”—subtitled “On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence.” The choice of date was deliberate: 135 years earlier, his namesake Leo XIII released “Rerum Novarum.”
“Pope Leo XIV chose his regnal name in deliberate continuity with Pope Leo XIII, whose 1891 encyclical “Rerum Novarum” founded modern Catholic social teaching in response to the Industrial Revolution; the new encyclical situates AI within that same tradition of social doctrine alongside Laudato Si’ and Fratelli Tutti,” said Northwestern University professor Dr. Gayle Woloschak to the Orthodox Observer.
