A podcast has been published on the Spreaker channel of the Press Office of the Royal Commission for Italy of the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of Saint George, the first of a two-part series, in which we offer a reflection on Magnifica Humanitas, the first Encyclical of Pope Leo XIV.

The first podcast titled “Leo XIV and the return of the Truth of Christ,” curated by Dr. Angela Ambrogetti, Director of the Catholic agency ACI Stampa of the EWTN group, focuses on the issue: the Pope’s invitation to safeguard the truth about God and man against manipulations and cultural conformities: “The text reads like a fine essay, slowly so as not to forget what the Church has said and done through the centuries, even acknowledging errors, but with the certainty that without God there is no future for man.”

The eleven Podcasts on the Social Doctrine of the Church, unfortunately little known, which the Constantinian Order published between January and June 2025, should be regarded as preparatory for reading Leo XIV’s first Encyclical.

Presented last May 25 in the Vatican, the Encyclical bears the date May 15, the same day in which Leo XIV in 1891 published his social Encyclical Rerum novarum, dedicated to the industrial revolution of his time, 135 years ago.

Leo XIV has placed at the center of his reflection the digital revolution of our era, with particular regard to Artificial Intelligence. With a strong inspiration from John Paul II and Paul V, Leo XIV rereads the Church’s Social Doctrine for a first approach for those who do not know it; then it addresses the epochal change in light of that teaching, recalling the centrality of human dignity, the relationship between technology and the common good, and the challenges posed by Artificial Intelligence.

Leo XIV and the return of the Truth of Christ

“Let us remain faithful to the truth! Living immersed in endless flows of information, opinions, images, we know how easy it is to orient decisions and preferences through increasingly refined algorithms. In this scenario it is important to safeguard a heart that loves the truth, that desires what is right more than the most appealing content, that seeks wisdom more than immediate impact. The truth we must not lose is the truth about God and about the human being, just as Christ has revealed them to us.”

Perhaps this is the sentence that best marks the meaning of Magnifica Humanitas, the first Encyclical of Pope Leo XIV. An envoy to the distant ones, to the young who do not remember the previous Magisterium, in particular I would say that of John Paul II with thus references in the long text of Leo, to Mercy and to the limit of man and of evil.

An excellent manual of the Church’s Social Doctrine applied to today’s world.

With those two biblical images of the Tower of Babel and the Walls of Jerusalem. Not to close something, but to found a reality that is the Church and to make clear that “a work conceived without reference to God, sustained by an uniformity that eliminates diversity” must be replaced by the communion that is not homogenization.

That is why Leo writes that “the Social Doctrine becomes a theology of communion in history; a place where the Word, made flesh, continues to become dialogue, memory, and prophecy.”

And he poses the same question of John Paul II updated: “AI ‘makes human life on earth, in every aspect, more human’? Does it make it more worthy of man?” If the answer is “yes,” then we can recognize it as a good possibility to inhabit with responsibility, in a path of patient and shared rebuilding, modeled on the revival of Jerusalem told in the Book of Nehemiah. If instead the power grows while the heart withers and bonds break, then we face a new form of Babel: a grand, but inhuman, construction.

The conclusion of the text is the real heart of the Pope’s message, which in the many (perhaps too many?) pages of the text creates an excellent summary with a reading of the Church’s Social Doctrine, dynamic and not static, from Leo XIV to today.

Many topics addressed with the simplicity of a newspaper article that can help those who have never confronted certain themes. A pragmatism that does not indulge in particularities, but indicates a path that is simple: Christ.

And starting from Christ also for the Church the principles of the Social Doctrine are a true examination of conscience. “Let us remain faithful to the truth! Living immersed in endless flows of information, opinions, images, we know how easy it is to orient decisions and preferences through increasingly refined algorithms. In this scenario it is important to safeguard a heart that loves the truth, that desires what is right more than the most appealing content, that seeks wisdom more than immediate impact. The truth we must not lose is the truth about God and about the human being, just as Christ has revealed them to us.”