Pope Leo has Given Us a Massively Important Teaching

Pope Leo has given us a massively important teaching that will inform Catholic thought and morality vis a vis technological development for hundreds of years to come. 

Magnifica Humanitas teaches that human beings are the purpose and reason for technological development. Technology that enslaves people and reduces them to less-than-human servants of the technology our society produces is technology that is being put to immoral uses. We — you and I — people everywhere; our advancement and betterment, is the only moral purpose for technology. 

We are living souls, made in the Image and Likeness of the God Who created all of creation. It is not our purpose in the universe to serve the things we make. It is the purpose of the things we make to serve us. 

However, we live in a fallen world. Our enemy the devil is always prowling about, looking for ways to reduce us to the level of objects to be used and exploited. I think that this Image of God that resides in us is the reason why he does this. Satan hates God. Satan also hates the Image of God in each of us. 

Jesus did not leave us orphans. He gave us the Holy Spirit, and He gave us the Church. 

The Church is a stumbling, bumbling human institution wending its way through a fallen world. During its long history, more than a few of its bishops and priests have demonstrated quite clearly that they are more in league with the devil than with Christ. Despite that, the Church itself, speaking through the popes, has never departed from teaching the essentials of the faith. 

The Church has preserved the creeds, the sacraments and Gospels and the entire Scriptures through the rise and fall of empires, schisms, wars, plagues, the Dark Ages, the Enlightenment, exploration of the entire globe and beginnings of space exploration, the rise of the Industrial Age, two world wars, the fall of feudalism and monarchy and rise of democracy, and totalitarian governments of breathtaking cruelty and oppressiveness, globalization, and ever-accelerating change in how people live and think. Through it all, the Roman Catholic Church has continued to provide the sacraments and the consistent teachings which are the bedrock of all Christian thought of every Christian denomination. 

The Church has consistently affirmed the basic morality found in the Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes through every change history could throw at it. It has taught that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and through Him all human beings are saved for 2,000 years. 

Now, today, Pope Leo is affirming these things once again by applying the consistent Church teaching that every human being is made in the Image and Likeness of God to a technological dreadnaught that is bearing down on us in the form of AI. 

Pope Leo is not saying that we need to stop technological innovation. He is saying that any technology that people create — including AI — must be used to serve people, not the other way around. 

He is calling on government to exercise the power which is the only moral justification for government and act on behalf of the common good of the people entrusted to its care. Governments need to regulate AI so that it does not enslave ordinary people and destroy their freedoms. 

This teaching is particularly pertinent to the government of the United States of America, which, under Trump, has devolved into a lawless, immoral gangster state. 

Before we begin unpacking Magnifica Humanitas in detail, I want to give you the opportunity to view the speeches at the Vatican yesterday when Pope Leo unveiled it. 

One of the most interesting speeches came from Christopher Olah, one of the founders of the AI company Anthropic. 

Anthropic was in the news a few weeks ago because the company refused to allow Anthropic’s AI technology to be used to launch missiles on their own, without any human being involved, and — get ready for this — because they refused to allow the Trump administration to use their technology to put the American people under AI surveillance. 

Trump reacted as Trump always does, by mis-using the power of government to punish Anthropic for not bending to his will. He cancelled their contracts with the government and labeled the company a danger to America’s security. Then, he went out and found another AI company to serve him. 

The thing that interested me is not that Trump wanted to use AI to fire off missiles without human input. I was not surprised at all that he wanted to use AI to put you and me and granny down the street under government surveillance. After all, lots of administration people have made it clear that is their intent. 

I certainly wasn’t surprised that Trump mis-used the power of the presidency to punish Anthropic. It didn’t surprise me one bit that he found himself a billionaire to replace Anthropic. 

What surprised me was that a tech company actually demonstrated patriotism, morality and basic human decency. There are actually billionaires who care about something besides bellying up to the government bar and grabbing everything that’s not tied down? 

I felt like I’d seen a unicorn. 

So, it didn’t exactly surprise me when Pope Leo asked Christopher Olah to participate in the release of Magnifica Humanitas. I wasn’t surprised. But I liked it. I like seeing the good guys work together for good. It gives me hope. 

There are always good people. Brave people. People who have morals and decency and who care about other people. We need to remember that. 

Tomorrow, I’m going to create a post that simply links to a lot of videos from the Vatican. Yesterday was a historic day and I want to give you the opportunity to witness it first hand. 

The next day, we’ll start taking this Encyclical apart to see if we can learn what it says and decide how to utilize it to make moral, Jesus-following decisions in the demands we make as citizens of the United States of America on the politicians we put in power in our government.

Jesus Christ loves ordinary people like you and me. His Church is not failing. The Church is standing up. 

Note: “Jesus did not leave us orphans” Is a paraphrase of something Jesus said to His disciples before he ascended to His father. I am applying what He told them to all of us. You can find it in John 14:18.