Free Webinar: What the Pope says about AI (and why you might care) Posted on August 4, 2026 by gaudetetheology My (reasonably progressive, multicultural, Roman Catholic) parish is offering a free three-session webinar series on Pope Leo’s first encyclical (official pope letter to the world), which is primarily about “artificial intelligence” (scarequotes mine). The webinar series begins this week, and runs three Wednesday evenings (7:00 – 8:15 PM EDT) in a row – see more details at the bottom of the post. They’ve put together a pretty good panel: a computer security expert and an expert in economic and social justice will be joining one of our parish priests. Now: why might you care? Our current pope is Pope Leo XIV. He chose that name, Leo, as his papal name. Since he’s the 14th Leo, obviously there were earlier ones. Who was the previous pope with that name? Why, that would be Pope Leo XIII (sorry, couldn’t resist) , who was pope in the late 1800s, around the end of the Industrial Revolution (in Europe and the US, anyway), when everything about the making and buying and selling of things had changed over only a few generations. Leo XIII is most famous for _his_ official pope letter Rerum Novarum , which means “About New Things” — those being the modern ideas about labor and capital that still structure our economy today. This encyclical is widely considered by Catholic scholars to be the foundation of modern Catholic Social Teaching: social justice, labor unions, the preferential option for the poor. They were more fully fleshed out in Vatican 2, 150 years later, but the seeds are in Rerum Novarum. So here we have Pope Leo XIV, who certainly chose the name at least partially because of Leo XIII (he said as much in his first speech, IIRC); and here we have an economy that suddenly seems to be changing very quickly because AI is changing everything about the making and buying and selling of things; and his first encyclical — which is often perceived as setting the tone or the theme of a papacy — is about AI. Hmmm… coincidence?? I think not!! The title of this encyclical is Magnifica Humanitas, which means Magnificent Humanity. (So, there’s a hint, right?) Will Magnifica Humanitas be for the 21st century what Rerum Novarum was for the 20th century? Only time will tell… but surely these panelists will have some thoughts about that! I had originally intended to do a close read of the document before this webinar, but life is hard so that didn’t happen; so I don’t have any opinions about it of my own, yet. But I will say that expert technologist Bruce Schneier has read the document and says it’s “very good,” at least from his technical perspective. It’s Tuesday night as I write this, so from my perspective, part 1 of this series is tomorrow night. So if it’s Wednesday as you’re reading this, from your perspective, it’s later today! If you do attend, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments here. I’m definitely looking forward to it! This entry was posted in Moral theology, Theological anthropology, Theology and tagged #blaugust, #blaugust2026, AI, catholic, pope, webinar. Bookmark the permalink.