A Pennsylvania pro-life leader this week hailed Pope Leo XIV’s new encyclical on artificial intelligence (AI) and human dignity as making “a courageous case for human rights — specifically, the right to life.”
The overarching focus of the 85-page encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, released May 25, is the identity of man created in God’s image; from this foundation, the encyclical address topics such as AI, political power, war, transhumanism, and education, as Zeale News reported.
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In a May 26 statement posted by the National Right to Life (NRL), Maria Gallagher, executive director of the NRL state affiliate Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation, praised the encyclical for directly including a strong defense of human life from conception until natural death.
“Within its pages, the Holy Father proclaims the supreme value of human rights, which he says are universal and inalienable,” Gallagher wrote.
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She spotlighted a quote from paragraph 55 of the encyclical, when the Pontiff states: “Among these rights, the first is the right to life, from conception to its natural end, without which it is impossible to exercise any other right.”
This paragraph directly denounces abortion and euthanasia directly, Gallagher highlighted.
“In this way, the pontiff offers a robust defense of the sanctity of human life,” she stated. “He goes on to say that when this fundamental right is denied, such as through abortion, the killing of the innocent, and euthanasia, we are faced with choices the Catholic Church considers gravely wrong.”
“Pope Leo’s statement should put to rest any notion that abortion is not intrinsically evil. It is a profound violation of human rights and therefore should be condemned,” she concluded.