5 Things to Know About Pope Leo’s Encyclical - 5/26/26

This is Josh Mercer with your Morning LOOPcast, and we just wanted to give you five quick things about Pope Leo's new encyclical. Number one, it's an 85-page encyclical on safeguarding the human person. The full title is Magnifica Humanitas, on safeguarding the human person in the time of artificial intelligence.

Number two, it's not only about artificial intelligence. That's in the subtitle, and the Pope does address it directly, but this encyclical talks about the much larger transformation of human life in our time. Technology, work, education, truth, communication, political power, economic equality, transhumanism, and the temptation to treat the human person as data, material, or an instrument. Number three, Pope Leo XIV deliberately connects it to Rerum Novarum. From the introduction, Pope Leo places this encyclical in direct continuity with Pope Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum, an 1891 encyclical whose title means of new things.

Rerum Novarum responded to the upheavals of the Industrial Revolution, whereas the new Pope's encyclical responds to the new things of our own age, artificial intelligence, digital power, and other important things. Number four, it wants to revive the social doctrine of the church. One of the strongest elements of this encyclical is the insistence that Catholic social teaching is not optional, outdated, or merely political. Pope Leo dedicates an entire chapter to its foundations and principles, including human dignity, human rights, the common good, and the universal destination of goods, subsidiarity, solidarity, and social justice.

Number five, the encyclical ends in hope. This encyclical is serious about the dangers of the present moment. It does not pretend that technology automatically makes us wiser, freer, or more humane, but the document is ultimately marked by hope. It's a hope not based on confidence in the future as such, but on the truth that the human person is made in the image and likeness of God, and God has not abandoned humanity. To find out more about the new encyclical, go to zeal.co, and while you're there, sign up for the loop. And get this in your inbox every day.