The first encyclical of the new Pontificate appears to be dedicated more to modernity in its multiple “Promethean dreams” than to Artificial Intelligence itself. It states, in fact, that “for an algorithm, error is something to be corrected; for a person, it can be the beginning of a profound change.” And again, man “does not flourish despite the limit but often through the limit.”
It can now happen that at the moment when wise Leo XIV points to the sky with his finger, many are led to look at the finger, extrapolating small contingent suggestions to the point of even deducing policies for decision-makers. But the deepest and most enduring contents of the Encyclical are, once again, those concerning the Christian principles that the Pontiff evidently wanted to reaffirm precisely in a modernity so pervasive as to encourage the criticized currents of “transhumanism” and “posthumanism.” Far from the centrality of technology!
Thus reappear, emphasized by the challenge of the new machines, precisely the non-negotiable values. The confirmation of anthropocentrism restates as the “first human right the right to life, from conception to its natural conclusion, without which it is impossible to exercise any other right.” The encyclical states that for the Church, behaviors such as “induced abortion” or “euthanasia” are “gravely illicit.” Similarly, it reaffirms the primacy, among human relationships, of the family “founded on the stable relationship between a man and a woman” which demands above all “cultural support” as well as legal and economic support. Finally, precisely in the context of artificial intelligence, it becomes even more necessary for parents to have “the primary and inalienable right to choose the type of education and training to be given to their children” based on “critical thinking.”
This is the Catholic Church. Like it or not.
