Magnifica Humanitas opens with two biblical images: the Tower of Babel and the rebuilding of Jerusalem under Nehemiah. The contrast frames Pope Leo XIV’s moral vision for the age of artificial intelligence.
Babel represents a civilization driven by concentration, self-sufficiency and technical mastery. Humanity seeks greatness through power and efficiency but loses communion along the way. Babel, Leo writes, “reveals the limits of any effort that, however grandiose, arises from self-affirmation, sacrifices human dignity for efficiency and aspires to reach heaven without God’s blessing.”
Jerusalem offers another possibility. After destruction and exile, the city is rebuilt not through centralized control but through shared responsibility. Families, workers, priests, artisans and civic leaders each rebuild part of the wall. Diversity is not erased but ordered toward a common purpose. Jerusalem, Leo explains, “is reborn, not through the initiative of one man, but through the shared responsibility of all.” Its inhabitants rediscover “a common language — not one of uniformity, but one of communion.”
Leo is proposing more than a moral framework for AI. He is offering a vision for how humanity might govern technological civilization itself. “The primary choice,” he writes, “is not between a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to technology, but rather between constructing Babel or rebuilding Jerusalem.”
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With thanks to National Catholic Reporter and Enzo Del Brocco, where this article originally appeared.
