As those responsible for the French Social Weeks (SSF), how can we not be touched or even moved by Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, officially translated “Magnificent humanity” but which also means “Humanity capable of great things”?
Created in 1904 by two lay people at the invitation of the encyclical Rerum Novarum of Leo XIII – this pope whose heritage Leo To rediscover our mission, namely “to put into practice, in daily life, in family relationships, at work and in social life, the principles (of the social doctrine of the Church) by allowing ourselves to be animated by the intention of embodying the love of God in the concrete course of history. »
In resonance with the work of the SSF
This first encyclical of Leo XIV deals with the social doctrine of the Church in the age of AI. It resonates with a “manifesto for an ethical and democratic AI” produced last November by the SSF, resulting from a year of work and the meeting of a thousand people.
We highlighted contributions that are “sometimes prodigious for society” and stressed that in view of “the upheavals underway or expected, it is important, even vital, to question its development and its uses”. “It is our duty as citizens,” we wrote, “to identify risks and possible deviations, whether at the level of the individual, the economy, society, the nation, or the planet. »
Leo
This encyclical brings together and reassures, illuminating the depths of the waters in the distance. She shows a path and faces the rising swell and will not fail to seek to fall on the pope. Since his trip to Africa, Leo XIV has already revealed his courage, in the face of corruption or the Trump administration, revealing himself to be a moral leader very adapted to today’s history through his origin and his missionary journey.
The thousand faces of the architects of “modern Babel”
If Magnificent Humanity is in line with the straight doctrinal line of its predecessor, that of a Pope Francis turned towards the peripheries, denouncing consumerist ideology, the first text of Leo XIV addressed to the entire Catholic Church is close to Benedict XVI in its form, calm and ordered.
Above all, he invites a parallel with John Paul II through his political firmness, his clear designation of a new totalitarian threat. The Cold War enemy is still there, opposed to “inner freedom and critical thinking.” He has only changed his face and his power is unprecedented in the history of humanity. This enemy is AI, embarked by those who envisage “second class” human beings and provoke “new forms of slavery”.
The new totalitarianism has the thousand faces of the architects of “modern Babel”. A tower built by followers of “posthumanist” currents who “colonize the collective imagination” and use the AI revolution as a “lever of domination”. The “fullness of Life” consists in their eyes “of having more, of reducing fragility, of eliminating the unexpected, of controlling everything”.
However, Leo These architects of the new Babel who are disinterested in the truth can “direct information and consumption, condition democratic processes and influence economic dynamics to their advantage, in contradiction with social justice and solidarity between peoples”.
Laying the stones of this “great project of our time”
How can we not be delighted to read a pope quote the philosopher Hannah Arendt, who deplores the disappearance of “the distinction between true and false (that is to say the norms of thought)”. Leo
So here we are on the move at the SSF, committed to this city praised by Leo XIV, in which “the dignity of every person is preserved, justice promoted and fraternity made possible”. It is up to us to make it desirable, to participate in making it possible with the impulse of anthropological optimism that the Pope gives us. He reminds us of this reality: “The memory of the saints and the righteous, the often forgotten peacemakers, shows that grace does not eliminate conflict by a magical gesture, but generates active resistance against evil and surprising creativity in good. »
Like Nehemiah, whom Leo
Who knows if this American pope will not continue his exhortation to “disarm AI”, even where John Paul II, in 1980 then in 1983, at the headquarters of UNESCO in Paris then in the sanctuary of Lourdes, had made his most structured and prophetic remarks of his long pontificate against the totalitarianism of the Soviet era. We will be there!
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