ActonInstitute

Congratulations to Maria Montserrat Alvarado, a valued member of the Acton Institute's board of directors, on her appointment by Pope Leo XIV as Prefect of the Vatican's Dicastery for Communication.

Her career has been defined by a commitment to religious freedom and faithful public witness, from 14 years at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty to her leadership at EWTN News.

Her appointment marks the first time a woman who has not taken religious vows as a nun or a sister has been appointed to lead a Vatican dicastery. We are proud to call her a colleague and friend, and we offer her our prayers and congratulations as she begins this new chapter of service.

Pope Leo XIV appoints EWTN News president to lead Vatican communications department Montserrat Alvarado becomes the first laywoman appointed prefect of a dicastery of the Holy See.

Want to read one of the hottest new releases on Amazon?

The Christian Roots of American Liberty: A Reader, by Acton's own Dylan Pahman and John Pinheiro, hit #1 in Christian Historical Theology new releases last week. As America turns 250, the question of what actually produced its ordered liberty has never been more timely.

Grab your copy today. Link in the comments.

Knowledge is power. But it is not salvation.

Pope Leo XIV's Magnifica Humanitas frames the AI revolution around a choice: build a new Tower of Babel, or build the city where God and humanity dwell together.

Michael Severance reflects on what the encyclical actually says. Link in the comments.

"Our lives do matter. Our individual efforts do have an effect. And as for Leo: A Pope who quotes Gandalf in The Return of the King alongside Hannah Arendt may be an ecclesial novelty."

Read Francis X. Maier's review of Pope Leo's Magnifica Humanitas at the link below.

Have you read Pope Leo's encyclical? Leave a comment with your thoughts!

Among the Acton Institute’s core principles are economic liberty, economic value, creation of wealth, and the social nature of the person. Free economic exchange enables people to leverage their gifts and talents to create wealth by transforming resources into economic value, not only for themselves but for society as a whole. Yet our social relationships entail the creation of other forms of value. Family, friendship, aesthetic pleasures, and other goods are not easily measured in economic terms, and artificial intelligence’s ability to bring economic value cannot displace these essential features of humanity, which themselves bring another, priceless kind of value to our world.

Artificial intelligence must serve rather than dominate humanity, for otherwise we risk operating under the illusion that we are free when in fact our freedom is vulnerable to erosion by opaque algorithms and those who control them. As Leo XIV succinctly puts it, these new things beckon:

"everyone to contemplate, in the face of the Son of God, the grandeur of humanity that shines a light also on the era of AI. In Christ, we are called to cooperate in the work of creation, rather than be disinterested observers of technological processes that limit our freedom and responsibility.… Even when machines excel in efficiency, a human face that asks to be gazed upon remains the center of our history” (§ 233).

Read more from Steve Barrows on Pope Leo's "Magnifica Humanitas" at the link in the comments.

The Second Vatican Council grappled with how to approach the “signs of the times” in Gaudium et Spes, giving the following warning:

"The modern world shows itself at once powerful and weak, capable of the noblest deeds or the foulest; before it lies the path to freedom or to slavery, to progress or retreat, to brotherhood or hatred. Moreover, man is becoming aware that it is his responsibility to guide aright the forces which he has unleashed and which can enslave him or minister to him."

In Magnifica Humanitas, the first encyclical letter of Pope Leo XIV, we see a pastor who understands that artificial intelligence is one of these forces.

And yet, Magnifica Humanitas is not an anti-technology manifesto.

Rather, it gives us an insightful, theological analysis of the complexity of political, social, and economic life in the digital age.

Acton's John C. Pinheiro highlights seven key takeaways. Link in the comments.

Pope Leo XIV's "Magnifica Humanitas" is here, and it's the Catholic Church's most direct engagement yet with artificial intelligence.

The encyclical doesn't say yes or no to AI. It asks harder questions: who is building it, and toward what end? Technology, Pope Leo argues, takes on the character of those who shape it. The choice before us isn't whether to use these tools. It's whether we build another Tower of Babel or something worthy of human dignity.

Read the full encyclical. Link in the comments.

AI is reshaping work, creativity, and how we understand what it means to be human.

What does the Catholic tradition have to say about it?

With Pope Leo's anticipated encyclical on artificial intelligence on the horizon, Dan Hugger sits down with an economist, historian, and anthropologist to ask what Catholic social teaching has to say about the AI revolution.

Watch all three conversations. Link in the comments.