If you follow the media, you have likely seen coverage of the tension between Pope Leo XIV and President Trump. We must always approach headlines with healthy discernment—media outlets thrive on sensationalism and conflict, to say nothing of the deepfakes and AI-generated fabrications that increasingly pollute the narrative.
At the same time, beneath the media noise lies a profound papal warning that demands our urgent attention.
In May 2026, Pope Leo XIV released his first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, explicitly marking the 135th anniversary of Pope Leo XIII’s seminal 1891 encyclical, Rerum Novarum.
Rerum Novarum was a prophetic alarm sounded at the volatile collision point of three monumental forces: unbridled capitalism, revolutionary socialism, and the Industrial Revolution. Pope Leo XIII foresaw that a society ignoring the moral boundaries of these movements was heading for catastrophe. The ruling elites refused to listen, choosing instead to give to Caesar what belonged strictly to God. The result? The accumulated pressure of these unheeded warnings erupted in 1914, tearing Europe apart in the global slaughter of World War I, and setting off a chain reaction that fueled the Great Depression and World War II.
Today, history may be repeating itself—and the stakes might be even higher.
Our Holy Father sees a terrifying parallel between 1891 and our present moment. Once again, we are mixing a lethal cultural cocktail: political polarization spiraling into ideological extremes, capitalism characterized by unrestrained corporate greed on one side, radical collectivism through socialism on the other, and now, the Artificial Intelligence Revolution.
Like the Industrial Revolution before it, Artificial Intelligence promises staggering economic growth and unprecedented capability. But like any mindless machine, Artificial Intelligence possesses no soul, no conscience, and no inherent respect for human dignity. From a certain perspective, it bears its own cold image and inscription.
Echoing the warnings of his predecessor, Pope Leo XIV raises three vital alarms in Magnifica Humanitas:
First, erasure of the soul. Artificial Intelligence threatens to reduce human beings to mere economic data points, attempting to replace love, empathy, and moral conscience with cold calculations of optimization algorithms in a data center.
Second, dehumanized warfare. The proliferation of autonomous weapon systems risks stripping the last remnants of human restraint from military decisions, entrusting life-and-death choices to machines operating beyond moral conscience and moral accountability.
Third, digital servitude. Unchecked technological displacement threatens to strip millions of their livelihood, widening the gulf between the ultra-wealthy elite and the vulnerable, creating modern forms of economic slavery.
This is not distant science fiction; it is the urgent reality of the twenty-first century.
Here is another example to illustrate the point. In 1968, Pope Paul VI issued Humanae Vitae, warning of the societal decay that would follow if the world abandoned Catholic moral teaching on human dignity and sexuality.
Society laughed, ignored the Vicar of Christ, and embraced the Sexual Revolution. Today, we live amid the ruins of that decision: rampant divorce, fornication, adultery, dysfunctional families, a below-replacement birth rate, abortion, pornography, sexual deviancy, and infanticide. And all of that is becoming increasingly celebrated by our society to the detriment of our civilization and the loss of many, many souls.
The tragic pattern of human history is clear: whenever human dignity is sacrificed on the altar of progress, it is a sin and there will be consequences.
In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus very clearly indicates that we are to listen to His Church. This is because, as we read in the Gospel of John, Jesus told the first bishops of the Catholic Church at the Last Supper that “the holy Spirit…will teach you everything” and “will guide you to all truth”.
I am sure society will continue to ignore the teachings of the Church just as they increasingly have since the Protestant Reformation. I am sure the warnings of Pope Leo XIV will be ignored just as the warnings Pope Leo XIII and Pope Paul VI were ignored. Society will continue to give to Caesar what belongs to God; i.e., our allegiance.
Will the consequences be as dire? Time will tell.
When Our Lady appeared at Fatima in 1917, she seemingly provided Heaven's exclamation point to the warnings of Rerum Novarum. She warned that when nations systematically reject God, moral law, and spiritual truth, they descend into war, persecution, and self-destruction.
We cannot render to God what is God’s if we permit technological power to strip away the sacred value of the human soul. The solution will not be found in better algorithms, but in deep internal conversion, prayer, penance, and unyielding fidelity to the Gospel and the Holy Catholic Church.
Let us pray for the conversion of the ruling elites that they will heed the voice of our Holy Father before the warnings of today become the tragedies of tomorrow.
Through obedience to the Catholic Church we give the Lord glory and honor.
Thanks be to God!
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