Column Argues Pope's Forthcoming AI Encyclical Is a Battle for Humanity's Future
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LOS ANGELES - Californer -- Catholic author Robert J. Hutchinson has published a new column, "Pope's New AI Encyclical Is a Battle for Humanity's Future," examining Pope Leo XIV's upcoming encyclical on artificial intelligence and human dignity and situating it in the long history of Catholic personalism.

In the column, Hutchinson recounts a proposal to create an AI deepfake of Pope Leo XIV for "virtual papal audiences" — an idea the pope flatly rejects — and uses it as a window into the deeper philosophical questions the Church is raising about AI and the human person.

The encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas ("Magnificent Humanity"), to be released on May 25, is framed as a deliberate echo of Leo XIII's 1891 social encyclical Rerum Novarum on industrialization and workers' rights.

"Rerum Novarum didn't stop the robber barons," Hutchinson writes, "but it gave generations of workers, legislators, and labor organizers a language and a framework they didn't have before. That's what's being attempted here: not tech regulation, but a philosophy of the person rigorous enough to push back against the assumption — widespread in Silicon Valley and mostly unexamined — that intelligence is computation and consciousness is code."

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The column highlights how Leo XIV draws on the Catholic personalist tradition, from the scholastics through Emmanuel Mounier and John Paul II, to argue that intelligence is more than the ability of a large language model to manipulate symbols or generate text. It includes the capacity to grieve, to sacrifice, and to stand in "authentic wonder" before creation — realities that cannot be reduced to algorithms.

Hutchinson also notes the symbolism of the encyclical's timing: Leo XIV signed it on May 15, the 135th anniversary of Rerum Novarum, underlining the continuity between the Church's response to the industrial revolution and its response to the AI revolution. The encyclical will be presented at the Vatican alongside both theologians and AI researchers, including Anthropic co‑founder Christopher Olah, underscoring the urgency of a serious moral conversation about how AI is built and deployed.

"We'll find out May 25 whether the world is listening," Hutchinson concludes, "but the systems being built now will assume an answer to the question Leo is asking."

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The full column, "Pope's New AI Encyclical Is a Battle for Humanity's Future," is available on Substack at:

https://www.disputedquestions.com/p/new-ai-encyclical-is-a-battle-for

About the Author

Robert J. Hutchinson is the author of When in Rome and Searching for Jesus. His forthcoming book, Two Leos: The Popes, Technology, and the Future of Humanity, examines the parallel pontificates of Leo XIII and Leo XIV and will be published by Angelico Press in November.

Media Contact:

Robert J. Hutchinson

robert@roberthutchinson.com

www.DisputedQuestions.com

+1.949.317.4387