‘MAGNIFICA HUMANITAS’

Part 2: A look at the Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church

The EU flag, a stock graph and the words "AI ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE" are seen in this May 21, 2024, illustration. (OSV News illustration/Dado Ruvic, Reuters) (Courtesy photo of Dado Ruvic)

Editor's note: This is the second reflection in a six-part series looking at Pope Leo XIV's first encyclical "Magnifica Humanitas."

In Chapter 2 of “Magnifica Humanitas,” Pope Leo XIV gives us a bit of homework in reviewing what is known as the Social Doctrine of the Church. Again, it’s worth reading and to familiarize yourself with important doctrinal concepts like “social justice,” “universal destination of goods” and “subsidiarity.”

In the space we have here, you might not be looking for a lesson on what might come off as economics or political theory. I don’t blame you! But the truth is that the Social Doctrine of the Church is remarkable stuff. It’s a vision of the future. It’s a path forward. It’s a measure to judge our social systems. Beyond that, it’s an invitation to hope with our boots on the ground.

Think of some of the big ways the Catholic Tradition asks us to imagine the world. When the church remembers the Garden of Eden, we remember a time when God provided for all of humanity and we stood without shame in friendship with him. After sin and the fall, we looked back to Eden longingly as we experienced hardship, futility, division and death. With the coming of Jesus, we meet the one who seeks to redeem our fallen creation, just as he announces the Kingdom of God. In the Kingdom, we consider God coming into our fallen world to make things right and to teach us a better way to be toward one another. Now we eagerly await that Kingdom’s realization as we strive to live out the Gospel in the midst of a life that is often hard and unfair. In this, we are left with the most hopeful image of all in the Book of Revelation … the creation of a new heaven and a new Earth and the coming of the New Jerusalem, where once again God lives with humanity.

Our place in that is someplace in the middle. We live in different forms of societies: families, churches, nations and the whole world. It isn’t cynical to say that they aren’t perfect. It isn’t judgmental to say that they aren’t always fair. It isn’t wrong to say that these forms of societies have real problems that often end up with people getting treated badly. 

The Social Doctrine of the Church wants us to consider what would happen if our communities were places where everyone is equal, where everything is fair, and where everyone can use their gifts to serve others. What would our communities look like if we cooperated, seeing each other as brothers and sisters whom we ought to care for? What would the world look like if everyone gave what they had and were able to work so that everyone had enough? What would our communities look like if everyone was encouraged to participate in considering the common good in their own communities while respecting legitimate authority? 

In order to do that, we’d have to take a hard look at the things that threaten the common good in our communities, things like exploitation, abuse and even hoarding.

Why would we do that? Because the church teaches that as humans of infinite dignity and worth, we have inalienable rights. People, whether they are your neighbor, your enemy, your co-worker, or people who aren’t always protected like migrants, should be respected and cared for. That’s how it was in the early church and that’s still the Christian goal for our societies today. When speaking of migrants, Leo speaks well of all humanity: “They are people with dignity, resources and dreams, who have the right to be treated with respect and to become active members of the societies that welcome them” (81). Leo says that “Human dignity does not depend on a person’s abilities, wealth or position in life, nor in the right or wrong choices made; instead it is a gift that precedes and transcends each person, endowed by God as an expression of his unfailing love” (50). Nothing can negate our inherent value: “No sin, failure, humiliation or exclusion can diminish the profound value of a human life that God has willed and called into being” (52).

Dealing with reality

Pope Leo is also not cynical when he considers how those in power, including in Big Technology, often treat people as commodities to be exploited. Consider how much of what comes through our phones and computers factors in the fact that many users will become addicted, often embedding basic features in deceptive advertising or making more addictive features accessible by payment methods that seem more at home in a casino. Pope Leo says that people need a say when technology seeks to exploit: “When it comes to decisions regarding economic flows and digital platforms, as well as the governance of data and algorithms, we cannot allow a handful of actors to dictate these processes on their own; instead, we must build forms of cooperation that respects the various levels of the global community and make them jointly responsible for the common good” (72).

The state itself has a major responsibility in ensuring the common good. Pope Leo is not afraid to say that “it is the State’s responsibility to ensure cohesion, unity and the proper organization of civil society, so that the common good can be pursued with everyone’s contribution.” He goes on to say that when “politics abandons a long-term perspective and reduces itself to short-term calculations or sterile polarizations, then the language of the common good loses credibility, and, at the same time, social inequalities and divisions grow” (63). 

When assessing any sort of system or technology, perhaps we can consider these questions:

• What good does it serve? Does it serve the many or the few? Who does it help?

• Are people treated with dignity or as a commodity to be exploited?

• Who is in charge? Do they make decisions or do we decide for ourselves?

• Do those in charge bring people together or foster divisions?

• Do they promote fairness for everybody or for the few? Are the poor prioritized?

Tom Acemoglu is Pastoral Associate for Evangelization and Catechesis at St. Ambrose Church in Latham. He has 25 years of experience in parish ministry and has worked in the church for 18 years.