Notre Dame experts respond to Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical Magnifica humanitas

On Monday (May 25), Pope Leo XIV released his first encyclical, Magnifica humanitas (Magnificent humanity), which provides moral guidance to bishops, clergy and the faithful on safeguarding the human person in the time of artificial intelligence (AI).

The encyclical was officially signed on May 15, the 135th anniversary of Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical responding to the industrial revolution, Rerum novarum.

Below, University of Notre Dame faculty experts from the College of Arts and Letters, College of Engineering, Keough School of Global Affairs and Law School offer their insights into the document.

Rev. Daniel Groody, C.S.C.

Rev. Daniel Groody, C.S.C., serves as vice president and associate provost for undergraduate education and professor of theology and global affairs. In addition to his role at Notre Dame, Father Groody is a member of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development and plays a key role in Notre Dame’s partnership with the Vatican’s Laudato Si’ Center on issues of integral ecology and global sustainability. His research focuses primarily on migration, theology, refugees and human displacement.

“Pope Leo’s Magnifica humanitas calls us to continually discern what it means to be human before God in a world increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence,” Father Groody said. “While this new digital age offers unprecedented possibilities for development, it simultaneously demands that we rediscover the true contours of our humanity. This authentic identity — rooted in an interior life, a moral conscience, human connections and a transcendent relationship to divine love — can never be quantified, modeled or replicated by machine learning. Against the technocratic impulse to reduce the human person to a mere data point, the encyclical boldly reasserts that we cannot be measured solely by technological acceleration but by holistic human development, human dignity and our commitment to the common good.

“Alongside new innovations, artificial intelligence reveals ancient temptations of radical self-sufficiency and idolatry. Warning against the modern temptation to construct a digital Tower of Babel in the pursuit of technological mastery, Pope Leo calls us instead to channel our energies into building the Kingdom of God and animating a ‘Civilization of Love.’ This sacred task requires an unwavering willingness to denounce the false forms of power that isolate us in algorithmic silos and blind us to our neighbors. In their place, Magnifica humanitas proposes a vision of life firmly anchored in justice, ultimately steering humanity toward the right ordering of our relationships with one another, with technology and with the Creator.”

Paolo Carozza

Notre Dame Law School professor Paolo Carozza is a member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences and also the chair of the Meta Oversight Board. Both his research and policy work are focused on the intersection of Catholic social thought and technology, especially social media and AI.

“I am convinced that this will prove to be a defining document for our era, a profound and prophetic document,” Carozza said. “It is not just for Catholics, but speaks to the concerns of all of humanity.

“We are living in a time of daily dramatic transformations in every aspect of our lives because of AI, where the very understanding of what it means to be human is being called into question. This is coupled with a real vacuum of moral leadership on the global stage. In that context, Pope Leo is offering a clear, comprehensive and coherent voice urging us to take responsibility for constructing a world in which technology will serve humans rather than degrade them.

“From here on, I don’t think anyone will be able to speak meaningfully about the future of humanity in the age of AI without coming to terms with this document and taking it seriously. While it is very direct about the many dangers already arising out of algorithmic technologies, it is decidedly not an anti-technology document. The real question is not whether AI is good or bad, but whether the ways we develop and deploy the technology help individuals and communities become more humane, just and participatory, or whether instead they foster exclusion, control and inequality.

“The overarching core message is that if we are to preserve our humanity, we must not allow people to be reduced to mere data and commodities to be instrumentalized and exploited. It is a very hopeful document, not a doomsaying one. Pope Leo insists that moral progress here is possible, and the negative consequences of AI technologies are far from inevitable.”

Meghan Sullivan

Meghan Sullivan is the Wilsey Family College Professor of Philosophy and director of the Notre Dame Institute for Ethics and the Common Good. She leads a national research and public engagement initiative on AI and human dignity and meets regularly with tech leaders and AI developers in Silicon Valley. In March, Sullivan attended an Anthropic summit to discuss how to guide the moral development of the corporation’s chatbot, Claude.

“Magnifica humanitas is one of the most compelling and comprehensive treatments of AI ethics I have ever read — and I say that as someone who has spent the past few years immersed in this literature from both philosophical and policy perspectives,” Sullivan said. “Pope Leo XIV grounds AI ethics in the Church’s long-standing social doctrine, which has consistently offered a profound vision of human dignity.

“Christian tradition has never grounded human dignity in cognitive performance or economic productivity. It has never said: You matter because of what you can do. It says: You matter because of who you are. Someone with a body, mind and soul. Someone built for love. Someone with a mind oriented toward truth, accountable for our choices. We’re vulnerable in a way that these AI models are not. And Pope Leo argues that this special belovedness — made in God’s own image — makes us magnificent.

“What strikes me most is how practical this document is. It gives concrete guidance to corporate leaders, to policymakers, to educators, to everyday people navigating this technology. For those of us at Notre Dame, the pope’s charge to educational institutions is especially urgent. He argues that schools must resist the pressure to simply accelerate alongside the digital world and instead become irreplaceable centers of human formation — places where knowledge is integrated, where real relationships are built, where students discover the meaning of human dignity.

“This is exactly the work that Notre Dame’s DELTA network exists to do. With a generous $50.8 million grant from Lilly Endowment Inc., we are going to put this teaching on human dignity and AI into action — across K-12 schools, universities, churches and the public square. Today’s encyclical gives us both the theological framework and the moral insight we need. Notre Dame is ready to help the Church and the world answer Pope Leo’s call.”

Nitesh Chawla

Nitesh Chawla, an expert in artificial intelligence, data science and network science, is the Frank M. Freimann Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, director of the Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society and the Lucy Family Director for Data & AI Academic Strategy, leading the Notre Dame Data, AI and Computing Initiative. He uses advancements in AI, data science and network science to pursue common good through interdisciplinary research by collaborating with community and national partners.

“Magnifica humanitas makes clear that AI cannot be treated as morally neutral,” Chawla said. “Because these systems embody choices about what they measure, ignore and optimize and how they classify people and situations, they must be transparent, accountable and subject to meaningful evaluation.

“That is the work of Responsible, Inclusive, Safe and Empowering AI — RISE AI — at Notre Dame. Anchored in the Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society, RISE AI asks four practical questions: Who answers for an AI system across its lifecycle? Who is represented and served? Who is protected from harm? Who gains or loses agency? AI governance claims are only as good as the evidence chain that connects them to what the system does. RISE AI builds that chain. That chain runs through audit logs, red-teaming, subgroup performance, accessibility, redress and user-agency measures that show what a system actually does and where its limits are.

“The encyclical’s most important insistence is that moral and technical questions cannot be separated; they meet in how systems are evaluated, audited, deployed, made contestable and governed. As paragraph 109 puts it, social justice must ‘shape the very design’ of these systems from the outset, not be retrofitted after deployment. That means building AI that is not only powerful but legible, accountable and directed toward integral human development and the common good — making responsibility measurable, inclusion visible, safety testable and empowerment real.

“As Magnifica humanitas insists, responsibility must be ‘clearly defined at every stage.’”

Kathleen Sprows Cummings

Kathleen Sprows Cummings is a professor of American studies and history and director of the Global Catholic Research Initiative. A papal analyst for NBC/MSNBC, she offered expert commentary during the 2014 canonization of Popes John Paul II and John XXIII, Pope Francis’ U.S. visit in 2015, Pope Francis’ funeral in 2025 and the conclave that elected Pope Leo XIV.

“‘Age gives way to age,’ wrote Pope Leo XIII in Rerum novarum, ‘but the events of one century are wonderfully like those of another, for they are directed by the Providence of God.’ In Magnifica humanitas, an encyclical dated exactly 135 years after Rerum novarum, Pope Leo XIV also invokes God’s invisible work in history,” Cummings said. “And, like his namesake, he considers the central challenge of the age — in this case, the advent of artificial intelligence — in light of the Church’s timeless principles.

“More humble in tone than Rerum novarum, Magnifica humanitas is a far more capacious document that operates on several levels at once: an explanation of Catholic social teaching as it has developed since Rerum novarum; an affirmation of the intrinsic, God-given value of each person, which is not tied to what they achieve or produce; a rumination on the wonder and limitations of being human; a meditation on history, including an unflinching acknowledgement of the Church’s complicity in its darker moments; and an invitation to individuals and institutions to think creatively and collaboratively about how to ‘disarm’ new technologies and harness them for good.

“In his powerful conclusion, Pope Leo entrusts this endeavor to Mary, quoting from the Magnificat, her revolutionary ‘song of hope’ which glorifies the God who delivers the humble and oppressed, dislodges the privileged from their positions of power, and continues to make all things new in this and in every age. In that sense, Magnifica humanitas ultimately offers consolation to a world in desperate need of it.”

Arun Agrawal

Arun Agrawal, the Pulte Family Professor of Development Policy and director of the Just Transformations to Sustainability Initiative, studies environmental politics, sustainable development and transformative change. He has spent time with Catholic leaders discussing ways to care for our common home globally and across all disciplines and can address how AI technology is impacting the environment.

“The words ‘common good’ appear in Pope Leo’s encyclical, Magnifica humanitas, more often than the words ‘artificial intelligence’ or ‘AI,’ more often than ‘church,’ and more often than ‘religion,’” Agrawal said. “In its mention of the common good, the encyclical resonates with Pope Francis’ call for care for our common home. This continuity and this focus on the common — on the community of which we are all a part — is a characteristic feature of what it means to be human, to be part of the interconnectedness of all creation.

“Fundamentally, the encyclical is a call to heed and act for the common good. It is a call to move away from the kind of politics that advances only the fortune and interests of a select few. Increasingly, our politics pushes to the side the grandeur of humanity and promotes markets that profit the elite instead of supporting the common good.

“It prophetically recognizes that the ‘invisible hand’ of the market is in fact about the visible hand of politics that helps the marriage of finance and technology. It instead asks for our politics that would direct technology and finance and artificial intelligence to support the common good so as to achieve the grandeur of humanity. It is only by attending to this call that we have any hope of maintaining the dignity of the whole person.”

Additional Notre Dame experts on the AI encyclical and a statement from University President Rev. Robert A. Dowd, C.S.C., are available.