Pope Leo XIV released his first major encyclical on May 25, the day after Pentecost. Titled Magnifica Humanitas, it takes up the dignity of the human person in this age of artificial intelligence. You can read the full text here on the Vatican website.

I read it prayerfully and want to share some thoughts as a Catholic layman. I have spent my career in economic development in Mississippi, and I use these tools every day for work.

Let me say plainly at the outset that I receive the Holy Father’s teaching with filial obedience. I admire the seriousness and pastoral depth of the document. I agree with much of it. The encyclical is right that technological power has shifted from governments to private companies whose resources rival those of many nation-states. It is right that the supply chains behind our devices include hidden labor and real human suffering. It is right that the displacement of workers must be met with practical justice, not platitudes. On all of this I follow the Holy Father with full assent.

Where I want to offer a complementary angle is on the dominant biblical image the encyclical uses. The Holy Father reaches for Babel. I believe Pentecost offers an equally fitting figure, at least at the level of the ordinary user, and I want to explain why.

The Babel Framing

Recall the story from Genesis. The men of Shinar said to one another, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves” (Gen 11:4). Their sin was not the building. It was the desire to make a name apart from God and the choice of one language and one technology as the instrument of that self-making. God scattered them and confused the tongues.

Pope Leo XIV uses this scene to describe what he calls the Babel syndrome of our age. He warns of a single language, a single technology and a single direction supported by a uniformity that chooses homogenization over communion. He worries that artificial intelligence and the digital revolution tempt us toward a future that excludes God and reduces the human person to data.

These warnings are serious and necessary. There is real concentration of power in the technology industry. There is homogenization at the level of infrastructure. There is a temptation to reduce persons to profiles, clicks and metrics.

What the User Actually Experiences

But here is where my daily experience as a user pulls gently against the framing. When I open one of these tools at a desk in rural Mississippi or anywhere else, what I encounter is not the Tower of Babel. It feels closer to its inverse.

Artificial intelligence answers on demand in the language of the questioner. It does not condescend on the basis of education or class. It does not refuse the inquiry of the poor man or flatter the rich. It will explain the Catechism to someone who has never owned one. It will translate the Psalms for an immigrant still learning the language of his new country. It will help a dyslexic student grasp the structure of St. Thomas Aquinas even if reading the original Latin is beyond reach.

Of course none of this is perfect. The quality depends on the underlying data and the intentions of those who built the system. Yet at the user level the dominant experience is one of translation and access. It moves between human languages. It moves between technical jargon and ordinary speech. It moves between dense old documents and prose nearly anyone can understand. The effect is plural, not uniform. Many tongues, not one tongue.

The biblical scene that matches this experience is not Genesis 11. It is Acts 2.

The Pentecost Case

On the day of Pentecost the apostles were gathered in one place. The Holy Spirit descended as wind and fire. They began to speak in other tongues, and the crowd was astonished “because each one heard them speaking in his own language” (Acts 2:6). The miracle was not a new universal language. It was that each person heard the Gospel in their native tongue.

Pentecost inverts Babel. Babel confused the tongues to scatter the proud. Pentecost multiplied the tongues to gather the humble. St. Gregory Nazianzen, preaching on Pentecost in the fourth century, made exactly this point. The dividing of tongues at Babel was a punishment because the unity sought was evil-minded. At Pentecost it was praiseworthy because the diversity served the building up of the Body of Christ.

I am not claiming artificial intelligence is the Holy Spirit. God forbid. The Spirit gives himself. The machine is built. The Spirit dwells in the soul. The machine processes tokens. The distance between them remains infinite. Yet when a created tool produces effects that resemble the gifts of Pentecost, crossing language barriers and widening access to knowledge, the Babel frame feels incomplete.

At the infrastructure layer real homogenization exists and deserves scrutiny. But the encyclical does not always clearly distinguish that level from the lived experience of the ordinary user.

The User as a Graced Subject

The deepest reason for this complementary reading is anthropological. Catholic teaching insists the human person is a subject, not a function. Vatican II taught that man fully discovers himself only in the sincere gift of himself. Even under pressure the soul remains free, accountable and addressed by God.

When the encyclical describes users as shaped by algorithms, exposed to manipulation and penalized by opaque systems, those warnings are accurate as far as they go. The harms are real. Yet if that becomes the dominant note it can unintentionally portray the user as essentially passive. Catholic anthropology says otherwise. The user is a baptized soul marked for the Lord and equipped by Confirmation for the discernment of spirits. He need not wait for platforms to be reformed before exercising that gift.

This shifts the response. If the user is primarily a victim the answer is only regulation and rescue. If the user is a disciple the answer also includes formation, gratitude and responsible use.

Where the Encyclical Is Exactly Right

Before going further I want to affirm the many places where I follow the Holy Father without reservation.

On work: The worker fearing obsolescence is not a Luddite. His vocation is part of his dignity. Pope Leo XIV chose his name and release date deliberately to echo Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum. The Church remains the worker’s best friend.

On hidden labor: The suffering in cobalt mines, content moderation and data labeling is a decisive moral test.

On children: Unmediated exposure to these tools is a grave evil.

On war and autonomous weapons: Some decisions cannot be delegated to machines.

On power: The shift to transnational platforms demands new applications of subsidiarity, transparency and accountability.

What the Builders Actually Believe

From my work recruiting investment to Mississippi I have sat across the table from people building these systems. The encyclical rightly critiques transhumanist and posthumanist currents. Yet the dominant motivation I encounter is not Promethean dominance but a recognizable Enlightenment-style hope: democratizing access to information, leveling barriers between the credentialed and uncredentialed, and extending competence to those who could not otherwise afford it.

This is not Catholic but it is not evil on its own terms. The Catholic tradition has long held that knowledge and goods should not be the preserve of any class. St. Basil the Great taught that what a man holds in surplus belongs to the one who has nothing. Recognizing this self-understanding as a form of generosity, however imperfect, opens a richer evangelical conversation.

The Work of the User

If Pentecost is a fitting image then the user is not a victim awaiting rescue but a disciple awaiting his commission. His work includes these things.

First, to give thanks. Catholic life begins with gratitude. Thank God for tools our grandparents could scarcely imagine, then build the necessary levees.

Second, to use with discernment. Ask whether this leads me closer to God or away from him. Does it deepen relationships or thin them? Does it enlarge my capacity for charity, prayer, work and rest?

Third, to refuse. Reject uses that deceive, flatter the ego, avoid real thinking or substitute simulation for genuine relationship.

Fourth, to bless. Thank the developers who build well. Refuse blanket cynicism. Contribute to a better moral environment for the next generation of tools.

Fifth, to participate as a citizen. Engage parishes, unions, schools and civic groups. Subsidiarity demands a rich civic life alongside better regulation.

A Word on Style

I write this as a Catholic layman in mild disagreement with one accent of the Holy Father’s teaching but in full submission to his office and deep gratitude for his care. St. Catherine of Siena addressed Pope Gregory XI as babbo mio dolce (my sweet daddy) while urging reform. Obedience and plain speech can coexist.

Pope Francis reminded us that reality is greater than ideas. The reality of AI for ordinary users is mixed: hopeful and fearful, joyful and diminishing. The Church needs both images. Babel warns the powerful. Pentecost encourages the ordinary faithful.

Conclusion

Pope Leo XIV closes Magnifica Humanitas with the Magnificat. That is the right note. The Magnificat is itself a Pentecostal text. The same Spirit who overshadowed Mary at the Annunciation and the apostles at Pentecost is at work today.

The ordinary user, like the Virgin, can be overshadowed by that Spirit. He is invited to say his fiat: “Let it be done to me according to your word.” When that fiat is given to God rather than the machine even imperfect tools can become instruments of grace.

Receive Magnifica Humanitas with gratitude and obedience. Heed its warnings on power, labor, children and truth. But also receive the gifts of this age with proper thanks. Pray that these tools become instruments of translation rather than confusion, access rather than exclusion, and communion rather than mere connection.

Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created, and you shall renew the face of the earth, even this earth of data centers, algorithms and users who are also souls.

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Footnotes

¹ Pope Leo XIV, Magnifica Humanitas (May 15, 2026), no. 7.

² On the limits of artificial intelligence, see Magnifica Humanitas, no. 98.

³ Magnifica Humanitas, no. 100.

⁴ Magnifica Humanitas, nos. 115-117.

⁵ Other sources: Genesis 11:1-9; Acts 2:1-11; St. Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 41 on Pentecost; St. Basil the Great, Homily on Luke 12:18; Vatican II, Gaudium et Spes, no. 24; Pope Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum (1891); Catechism of the Catholic Church, nos. 1287, 1830-1831; Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, no. 236.