Re: Magnifica Humanitas...

Pope Leo XIV’s Magnifica Humanitas arrives at a moment when humanity stands in a kind of digital wilderness. We are surrounded by astonishing technological advancement, yet at the same time many people feel more isolated, disposable, manipulated, and spiritually exhausted than ever before. The Roman Pontiff recognizes something the mystics, prophets, and saints have always known: the greatest danger to humanity is not technology itself, but the loss of our ability to see one another as sacred.

From a Convergent perspective, this encyclical feels less like a rejection of modernity and more like a call to reclaim the soul within it. Convergent spirituality has always held that wisdom is found in both ancient tradition and contemporary revelation. God is not absent from scientific discovery, artificial intelligence, medicine, or technological progress. The Divine is still speaking through human creativity. But the encyclical wisely reminds us that when innovation becomes disconnected from compassion, justice, humility, and community, we begin building Babel all over again.

One of the most important insights in the document is the insistence that human beings cannot be reduced to algorithms, productivity scores, demographic categories, or market value. That truth matters profoundly right now, especially for marginalized people. LGBTQIA2S people, disabled people, immigrants, the poor, neurodivergent people, and so many others already know what it feels like to be treated as data instead of beloved souls. We know what happens when systems value control more than humanity. We know the violence that emerges when institutions stop seeing the image of God in actual living people.

And perhaps that is why this encyclical speaks so strongly to our present moment. It reminds us that technology is never neutral because human systems are never neutral. Every algorithm carries assumptions. Every platform reflects values. Every institution eventually reveals what it worships. If profit becomes the highest moral good, then people become expendable. If power becomes sacred, compassion becomes weakness. If efficiency becomes the idol, mercy will always be crucified first.

The Gospel offers another way.

Jesus never treated people as functions. He never reduced human beings to categories. The Roman Empire counted people for taxation, military control, and labor extraction. Jesus counted people worth dying for. Empire asked, “What is this person worth to the machine?” Christ asked, “How do we restore this person to wholeness?” Those are still the two competing spiritualities in our world today.

I was especially moved by Pope Leo’s warning about artificial intelligence being used for warfare, surveillance, and domination. History teaches us that every major technological leap eventually becomes a tool either for liberation or oppression. The Church knows this painfully well. The encyclical’s acknowledgment of the Church’s historical participation in slavery is significant because it recognizes a difficult truth: religion itself can become baptized empire when it forgets the radical dignity of the human person.

That warning should humble all of us.

As progressive believers, we often speak about the Cosmic Christ, the Divine Presence woven through all creation, holding all things together in love. If that is true, then every technological question is ultimately a spiritual question. Does this technology deepen human flourishing? Does it increase compassion? Does it help us encounter one another more honestly? Does it protect the vulnerable? Does it bring healing? Or does it create greater fear, isolation, greed, and dehumanization?

Those are not political questions alone. They are sacramental questions.

The encyclical also pushes back against the seductive fantasy that humanity can save itself through intelligence alone. We are living in an age where many people place almost religious faith in technology. But intelligence without wisdom is dangerous. Knowledge without love becomes cold. Power without ethics always creates casualties. The Christian tradition has always taught that salvation does not emerge from domination, but from relationship. Not from control, but communion.

And perhaps that is the deeper invitation within Magnifica Humanitas: to recover our humanity before we automate it away.

In a time when so many systems encourage division, outrage, commodification, and despair, the Church has an opportunity to become something radically different again. A place of contemplation in a culture of constant stimulation. A place of human dignity in a world of depersonalization. A place where people are encountered as mysteries rather than managed as problems.

The future does not belong to the loudest empire or the smartest machine. It belongs to those still capable of love.

That may sound overly simple to some. But the Gospel has always sounded naïve right up until the moment it changes the world.

Subscribe to Bishop Michael Angelo's substack to get more postings related to being Convergent today!