Will Pope Leo Write the Defining Encyclical of our Time?

Since Cardinal Robert Prevost took the name “Leo,” many have wondered whether his pontificate would echo the social vision of Pope Leo XIII. I have been especially eager to see how that vision might emerge in his first encyclical. His predecessor from the 19^th century, Pope Leo XIII, authored Rerum Novarum, a groundbreaking document establishing a step forward in Catholic Social Doctrine.

Rerum Novarum responded to the societal upheaval brought about by the Industrial Revolution. It began a series of documents that have come out from the Popes over the last 130 years, responding to the needs of the day and reaffirming the dignity of the human person.

Perceiving that our age is marked by confusion about the meaning and dignity of the human person, I suspected that Pope Leo XIV would turn to the question of technology, especially artificial intelligence, as one of the defining moral issues of our time.

I am excited because I think this will be a programmatic encyclical for Pope Leo XIV, just as Redemptor Hominis was for Pope John Paul II in 1979. He would spend the rest of his papacy proclaiming the Person of Jesus Christ and relating it to the reality of human existence. It became the key to interpreting all of his later papal teaching.

Rumor has it that we can expect the new encyclical on Friday, May 15. If that is the case, it hearkens back to the publishing of Rerum Novarum by Pope Leo XIII, as well as several other encyclicals that focus on Catholic Social Doctrine. It places the encyclical and perhaps the entire papacy in the context of responding to the social upheaval that we are experiencing as a society.

According to early reports, the encyclical may be titled Magnifica Humanitas, “Magnificent Humanity.” Pope Leo is expected to address the “ethical challenges posed by artificial intelligence and the profound consequences it may have for human work, social relations and the dignity of the person” (Catholic Herald, “Reports Emerge on Pope Leo XIV’s First Encyclical”).

We can look to some of his recent discourses, as well as some interventions by Pope Francis, to have a realistic expectation of what he might express in this first major magisterial document.

In the Message for the 60^th World Day of Social Communications, he expressed that “our faces and voices are unique, distinctive features of every person; they reveal a person’s own unrepeatable identity and are the defining elements of every encounter with others.” He responds to the anonymity that many experience in the modern world, hidden behind screens as they interact online. He exhorts us to think and to avoid simulating relationships and reality. I would expect some of these themes to reappear in his encyclical.

When speaking to university students in Cameroon, he traced the erosion of moral values that once guided community life to the spread of artificial intelligence systems. “Like every great historical transformation, this too calls not only for technical competence, but also for a humanistic formation capable of making visible the logic behind economics, embedded biases and forms of power that shape our perception of reality” (Pope Leo XIV, 17 April 2026). In other words, technological literacy alone is insufficient. We also need moral and philosophical formation capable of discerning the hidden assumptions built into our digital world.

While much of the papal social teaching has seemed a counterproposal to an atheistic Communist worldview, it seems that the Church is now responding to a type of secular humanism. While the values of humanism can be traced back to Christianity, we are living in a post-Christian world, and secular humanism seems to avoid fighting with the concept of the existence of God and instead lives as if he simply doesn’t matter.

Pope Leo XIV approaches the modern world not primarily as a diplomat or political strategist, but as a missionary who believes that Jesus Christ reveals the full truth about the human person. That conviction may become the key to understanding both his encyclical and his pontificate.