Professor Meghan Sullivan of the University of Notre Dame, a specialist in the ethical issues surrounding Artificial Intelligence, summarizes the new papal encyclical Magnifica Humanitas as a “blockbuster,” even in the first few months after its release!  She has been tracing the reactions to the document across the nation and around the world.

It is truly remarkable how Pope Leo’s document has received far greater and broader attention than any church document in recent memory. Although not all the media coverage has been uniformly positive, it is striking how extensive this attention has been, as it has garnered a myriad of clicks and eyeballs not just in the Catholic media but in the wider secular arena.

Even those harboring reservations about certain of the pope’s ethical arguments about the urgent need to establish guardrails for our new digital tools have taken this religious document very seriously, often celebrating the contributions the Catholic Church has already made to public dialogue over the proper shape of our new information environment.

A second remarkable thing about the encyclical goes beyond its prominence and reception to certain features of its content. In advance of its release, scholars of Catholic social teaching fully expected Pope Leo XIV to cite the accustomed set of core principles of social order in treating the new challenges surrounding the A.I. revolution.

In fact, Leo does that, but one he highlights is less commonly known — the principle known as “the universal destination of material goods.”The others are more commonly known: the common good, subsidiarity, solidarity, social justice, and integral human development.

This principle may sound somewhat complicated but is not new at all. In the New Testament book known as the Acts of the Apostles (2: 44-45 and 4:32-35), the early disciples receive praise for sharing their goods in common, lest anyone in the community of believers experience dire need. In the early centuries of church history, Patristic literature (the writings of the so-called “Church Fathers”) recognizes generosity with one’s possessions not only as a virtue but as a moral obligation, in line with divine intentions for the thriving of all. Saint Ambrose, for example, cautioned: “For what has been given in common for the use of all, you have arrogated to yourself. The world is given to all, and not only to the rich.”

Saint Basil the Great went even further, scolding: “The bread which you keep, belongs to the hungry; that coat which you preserve in your wardrobe, belongs to the naked; those shoes which are rotting in your possession, to the shoeless.”

The twentieth century witnessed a revival of church attention to this principle, namely that God intended all created things to serve the livelihood of all, not just a few who might be tempted to hoard material resources. Proper stewardship of creation must include deep concern for the neediest and most vulnerable among us. Pope Saint John Paul II wrote (in number 31 of his 1991 encyclical Centesimus Annus): “God gave the earth to the whole human race for the sustenance of all its members.”

When he promulgated the Catechism of the Catholic Church a few years later, John Paul made sure that five paragraphs (2402-06) of that newly updated reference work explained this principle of the universal destination of material goods.

That same text notes the potential tension with the right to private property, an institution long recognized as a foundation of market economies and of Catholic social teaching as well. But in his 1967 encyclical Populorum Progressio (no. 22), Pope Paul VI had actually resolved the issue with his admonition: “All other rights are to be subordinated to this principle [of the universal destination of goods].”

How does all this relate to artificial intelligence?

In paragraph 67 of Magnifica Humanitas, Pope Leo reminds us that today’s economy increasingly revolves around intangibles like patents, intellectual property and the data contained within digital platforms and information technology, beyond the old models of wealth stressing land, natural resources, and the material products that humans fashion in factories.

So today, when we consider the traditional theological claim that the “original gift of the earth belong to the whole of mankind,” we must be attentive to the risk that vast accumulations of wealth and power (such as we see with the accelerating domination of the economy by large tech companies) are more and more likely to harm those left behind by rapid innovations.

Like his predecessors, Pope Leo displays a keen awareness of the dangers and injustices that arise when a superabundance of wealth is held by certain powerful parties while others languish in poverty. We must therefore do whatever we can to ensure that our new economy will benefit the greatest number, not just the few who control all those chatbots and algorithms.

One concerned about the poor and vulnerable, whether from a faith-filled perspective or not, might well wonder about the “wisdom” of turning A.I. over to the likes of a man who, when he led the Department of Governmental Efficiency (DOGE), devastated both domestic and international humanitarian aid programs.

In perhaps what might be taken as an encouraging sign, our Notre Dame Professor Dr. Sullivan reports that when she traveled to Silicon Valley in California, she discovered that half the software engineers she encountered while touring the headquarters of several tech companies had read (or at least had some substantial knowledge of) Magnifica Humanitas, something that is highly unusual if not unprecedented. It has truly opened a global conversation about the key ethical issues relating to the digital revolution.

The new encyclical may not have all the answers regarding strategies to establish guardrails to protect the vulnerable (a category that, in the end, includes all of us), but it does pioneer the way to a comprehensive faith-based response to these new economic and social challenges.

By drawing upon such established ethical principles as the universal destination of material goods, Pope Leo is providing valuable moral guidance for our times. He is also contributing to Pope Francis’s ambitious agenda of inclusive love and genuine social concern.

The dignity and the very livelihood of the majority of the human family depend upon safeguarding the ethical values that people of faith have long affirmed, and these include accountability in the use of these new digital tools of artificial intelligence.

Additional Reading Resources:

• • Top A.I. Leaders Call for Slowing Down A.I. Development
  • We Must Pace the Frontier, a brand-new warning from Dario Amodei, co-founder of Anthropic, developer of one of the most advanced A.I. models.
  • Why It’s Difficult for Tech Companies to Rein In A.I.
  • AI needs a Ten Commandments

What would you suggest be included in the AI commandments? Email us your thoughts.

Thomas Massaro, SJ, is a member of the USA East Province of Jesuits. He is the Laurence J. McGinley Endowed Chair in Religion and Society and Professor of Moral Theology at Fordham University, New York. Fr. Massaro is a Director and Board Vice President of A Faith That Does Justice.