AI and Pope Leo: The New Revolution

John Wykes, OMV

May 14, 2025

When asked what name he would choose, the new successor of St. Peter said he would be called Leo.  Media commentators, feverishly chattering as the newly-elected pontiff waved to the crowds from the central loggia of St. Peter’s, highlighted two important items – number one, the surprise of electing a USA American to the See of Peter and, two, the papal name being a nod to the social teaching of Pope Leo XIII (+ 1903).

 Reflection on the name didn’t go much farther than that until two days later, when Pope Leo XIV addressed the College of Cardinals and offered this explanation:

 “…I chose to take the name Leo XIV. There are different reasons for this, but mainly because Pope Leo XIII in his historic Encyclical Rerum Novarum addressed the social question in the context of the first great industrial revolution. In our own day, the Church offers to everyone the treasury of her social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defence of human dignity, justice and labour” ({sp.} Holy See.  Address of His Holiness Pope Leo XIV to the College of Cardinals.  10 May 2025.  Copyright Dicastero per la Comunicazione).

What are we to think of this?  For guidance we can turn to the 19th Century Leo and his wonderful encyclical.

Back at the time of Leo XIII’s famous opus (1891), society was witnessing an intense process of urbanization.  People were leaving behind their farms and rural lifestyles to embrace the new urban-centered opportunities offered by the industrial revolution.  Factory workers and machinists poured into the world’s cities.

However, the bright promising future of the Industrial Revolution quickly devolved into an urban nightmare.  Workers who once tilled the soil were now separated from nature – spending entire days in enclosed spaces and feeling like cogs in the machines that ran society.  The rights of workers were not yet formalized.  So many of those in factories (including child workers) faced grave physical dangers and even death from machines that were poorly understood and often hazardous.  Workers no longer felt they had a meaningful voice or a meaningful life.  Those who once worked their own land were now buried underneath the machines they served and were completely separated from the product of their labors.   Those who remained on the farms wondered what the future would hold for them.

Radical atheists offered their own “solutions” to the problem.  They included the eventual rise of Marxist-Leninism in Russia, which only dehumanized the workers even more and strengthened the totalitarian state that oppressed them.  Years later, these states massacred innocent civilians by the millions.

Back in 1891, Pope Leo XIII offered a different solution.  In Rerum Novarum, the Holy Father rejected the two extremes of socialism and unbridled capitalism.  Leo insisted that workers had rights, including the right to form unions and to own private property.  Class conflict was not the inevitable outcome of social progress but something that was to be calmed and quelled by the Church through its teaching on social doctrine.  Above all, Leo emphasized the dignity of the human person, stating that workers should receive a just wage, reasonable work hours that allow for reasonable hours for rest, work conditions that are healthy for both body and soul, and breaks to allow quality time for both church and family.

When you think of it, the conditions faced by the people of the late 19th Century are very similar to the conditions we face today.  Now it is both blue collar and white collar workers whose jobs are threatened by AI and related technologies (such as robotics). Workers from all backgrounds are threatened to be dehumanized once again, this time by artificially-produced intelligence that can run machines, write short stories, paint pretty pictures, and answer complex health-related questions.

It is interesting to note that the larger social context in which we find ourselves is also very similar to conditions during the late 19th and early 20th Centuries.  Large companies are continually acquiring smaller ones and growing in influence and power.  Tyrannical leaders consolidate their ever-increasing power through hegemony.  And the most powerful countries in the world are forming alliances – ostensibly to seek greater protection but also to prepare for a world-wide conflict that, many fear, is just around the corner.

It is in the midst of all this that a very humble but very intelligent and quite capable cleric from Chicago has risen to the Chair of Peter.  Not one to be at a loss for words, Pope Leo XIV even managed to have a lengthy prepared text with him during his first appearance on the balcony of St. Peter’s – surely a first for such an event in modern times.

It’s been a busy first week for His Holiness, but, by all accounts, Pope Leo XIV has come out of the gate running.  I suspect it won’t be long before we hear much more from him on these and other important issues.  He also appears to be in good health – a good sign that he is ready to fight the good fight.  And at 69, he is the youngest pope in 35 years (since the moment St. John Paul II left his 60s in the year 1990, no pope thereafter has been under the age of 70).

Recently, after meeting with the press, Pope Leo’s trim, white-robed figure swiftly walked past reporters, answering questions as he went along.  One reporter asked, “Holy Father, what message do you have for the United States?”  The Holy Father smiled and said, “Many!” 

Then he continued on his way.