The pope signed ‘Magnifica Humanitas’ (“Magnificent Humanity”) on May 15, the 135th anniversary of the publication of the landmark social encyclical ‘Rerum Novarum.’
The Vatican announced Monday that Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical will be published on May 25, with the title Magnifica Humanitas.
Pope Leo will speak at a presentation for the release of the social encyclical — a papal letter to the Church — at 11:30 a.m. Rome time on May 25, in the Vaticanʼs Synod Hall.
The Vatican also confirmed that the full title of the encyclical is Magnifica Humanitas: On the Protection of Human Dignity in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. Magnifica Humanitas is Latin for “Magnificent Humanity.”
Leo signed the letter, which is expected to provide moral guidance on the digital revolution and emerging technologies such as AI, on May 15.
The speakers at the encyclicalʼs presentation will be: Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith; Cardinal Michael Czerny, SJ, prefect of the Dicastery for Integral Human Development; Anna Rowlands, professor of ethics and political theology at the University of Durham in the United Kingdom; Christopher Olah, co-founder of Anthropic USA; and Léocadie Lushombo, it, professor of theological ethics at the Jesuit School of Theology at Santa Clara University in Berkeley, California.
Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin will offer concluding remarks.
May 15 marked the 135th anniversary of the publication of Pope Leo XIII’s 1891 encyclical on capital and labor, Rerum Novarum, “Of New Things” — the first in a long line of social encyclicals produced in the modern era of the Catholic Church.
Pope Leo XIV indicated at the beginning of his pontificate that he intended to follow in the footsteps of his predecessor Leo XIII by responding to todayʼs Industrial Revolution: “developments in the field of artificial intelligence.”
Addressing the College of Cardinals on May 10, 2025, the new pope said he chose to take the name Leo XIV for various reasons, “but mainly because Pope Leo XIII in his historic Encyclical Rerum Novarum addressed the social question in the context of the first great industrial revolution.”
“In our own day,” he continued, “the Church offers to everyone the treasury of her social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defense of human dignity, justice and labor.”
This article was originally published by EWTN News English.
