National Catholic Register portal (May 26, 2026) — Msgr. James Shea, president of the University of Mary, offers an enthusiastic commentary on the first encyclical of Leo XIV, Magnifica Humanitas, praising it as a timely and profound response to the challenges posed by artificial intelligence. Shea describes the document as a synthesis of Catholic social doctrine, commending its insistence that “the fullest truth about man is revealed ultimately and most completely in the face of Jesus Christ.” He highlights Leo XIV’s call for responsible use of technology, his critique of transhumanism, and his appeal to all people of goodwill. Yet beneath this veneer of orthodoxy lies a thoroughly modernist framework—one that reduces the supernatural mission of the Church to a humanitarian project, ignores the primacy of the salvation of souls, and perpetuates the conciliar revolution’s false anthropology and ecumenical universalism. Far from being a beacon of truth, Magnifica Humanitas is yet another milestone in the apostasy of the post-conciliar sect.
The Illusion of Continuity: A False Synthesis of Social Doctrine
Shea presents Leo XIV’s encyclical as a natural development of the Church’s social teaching, drawing a direct line from Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum to the present moment. He writes: “Modern Catholic social doctrine has itself arisen and developed over the last 135 years precisely amid this great civilizational transition, as Christianity has increasingly been displaced as the governing vision of Western culture.” This framing is not neutral—it is an implicit acceptance of the very secularism that Pope Pius XI condemned in Quas Primas as “the plague that poisons human society.” Rather than lamenting the displacement of Christ the King from public life as a catastrophic fall from grace, Shea treats it as a given—a backdrop against which the Church must merely adapt its language and methods.
Leo XIV himself, according to Shea, echoes Pope Francis in describing the current moment as a “change of era” and an “epochal change.” This phraseology is not accidental. It reflects the modernist heresy condemned by St. Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis: the belief that doctrine must evolve with the times, that truth is not immutable but develops in response to historical conditions. The Council of Trent anathematized anyone who says that “the sacraments were introduced by the Christian community as interpretations of Christ’s thoughts” (Lamentabili, prop. 40), yet here we see the same evolutionary logic applied to the Church’s entire social mission. The Gospel is no longer the unchanging deposit of faith to be preached to all nations; it is a set of principles to be translated into “evangelical language” suitable for contemporary society.
The Reduction of the Gospel to Social Justice
Shea acknowledges—almost casually—that social encyclicals are addressed “not only to Christians speaking among themselves, but to all men and women of good will, including those outside the Church.” He quotes John XXIII: “While the Church’s primary mission is the sanctification and proclamation of eternal goods, she does not neglect the concrete needs of people’s daily lives.” This quote, taken from Ad Petri Cathedram, is itself a product of the modernist turn. It subtly subordinates the supernatural mission of the Church—the salvation of souls through the sacraments, preaching, and the authority of the Magisterium—to a secondary role of addressing temporal needs. The true teaching of the Church, as defined by the Council of Trent and reaffirmed by every pre-conciliar pope, is that the primary end of the Church is the eternal salvation of souls; temporal welfare is subordinate and instrumental to that end.
Shea warns against reducing the Gospel to social justice, but his warning is hollow. The entire structure of Magnifica Humanitas, as described, does precisely that. By framing the AI crisis as a “spiritual and civilizational” question rather than a moral and doctrinal one, Leo XIV avoids addressing the root cause of the modern world’s disorders: the rejection of Christ the King and the descent into rationalism, naturalism, and indifferentism condemned in The Syllabus of Errors. Pius IX explicitly condemned the idea that “the Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church” (prop. 55), yet the entire approach of this encyclical assumes such separation as a permanent condition.
The Erasure of Sin, Grace, and the Supernatural
Nowhere in Shea’s summary—or, one suspects, in the encyclical itself—is there any mention of original sin, the state of grace, the necessity of baptism, the reality of hell, or the salvific power of the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The “truth about man” revealed in Christ is presented in purely naturalistic terms: human dignity, vulnerability, communion, compassion. These are real goods, but without the supernatural order, they are mere palliatives. As St. Pius X taught, “The Church is incapable of effectively defending evangelical ethics, because it steadfastly adheres to its views, which cannot be reconciled with modern progress” (Lamentabili, prop. 63)—a proposition he condemned, yet one that Leo XIV’s encyclical implicitly affirms by refusing to confront modern progress with uncompromising doctrine.
Leo XIV’s critique of transhumanism, while superficially sound, lacks any reference to the theological virtues, the life of grace, or the ultimate end of man: the Beatific Vision. He speaks of “human limitations” as conditions through which we “mature” and “learn compassion,” but omits that these limitations are consequences of the Fall, redeemed only by the Precious Blood of Christ. The Cross is not a pedagogical tool; it is the propitiatory sacrifice for sin. Without this, the encyclical’s anthropology is Pelagian—a naturalistic optimism about human potential unshackled from the reality of divine judgment.
The False Universalism of ‘All People of Good Will’
The repeated appeal to “all people of good will” is a hallmark of the post-conciliar revolution. It was first popularized by John XXIII in Pacem in Terris, a document that marked a decisive break with the Church’s traditional teaching on the duty of states to recognize the true religion. Pius IX condemned the proposition that “in the present day it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State, to the exclusion of all other forms of worship” (Syllabus, prop. 77). Yet Leo XIV’s encyclical, as described by Shea, proceeds as if religious indifferentism were a settled truth.
By addressing non-Catholics as equal partners in moral discernment, the encyclical implicitly denies the dogma Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus. It treats the Church not as the one ark of salvation but as one voice among many in a global conversation about technology and humanity. This is not Catholic social doctrine; it is the democratization of the faith, condemned by St. Pius X as the essence of Modernism.
The Silence on the Kingship of Christ
Pius XI, in Quas Primas, declared that “the hope of lasting peace will not yet shine upon nations as long as individuals and states renounce and do not wish to recognize the reign of our Savior.” He instituted the Feast of Christ the King precisely to combat the laicism and secularism that Leo XIV now treats as irreversible realities. Yet in Magnifica Humanitas, there is no call for nations to submit to Christ, no demand for the social reign of the Sacred Heart, no condemnation of the Masonic and secular forces that have displaced God from public life.
Instead, Leo XIV offers “standards of discernment” and “cooperative efforts”—bureaucratic language that reveals a Church more concerned with managing the world order than converting it. The true remedy for the crisis of AI is not ethical guidelines but the restoration of the Kingship of Christ in families, nations, and international institutions. Without this, every technological “solution” will be another Tower of Babel.
The Idol of ‘Human Dignity’ Without God
The encyclical’s central claim—that “the fullest truth about man is revealed ultimately and most completely in the face of Jesus Christ”—is presented as its crowning insight. But without the context of the Incarnation, Redemption, and the supernatural life, this statement is emptied of its saving content. The “grandeur of humanity” becomes an idol, a self-referential humanism that worships man in the image of God while denying the God who made him.
Shea writes that Leo XIV “insists on the uniqueness of the human person made in the image of God,” yet this insistence is divorced from the dogmatic foundations that give it meaning. The image of God in man is not a philosophical abstraction; it is a theological reality rooted in creation, damaged by sin, and restored only through grace. To speak of human dignity without speaking of baptism, the Eucharist, and the moral law is to build on sand.
Conclusion: Another Step Toward the Abomination of Desolation
Magnifica Humanitas, as presented by Msgr. James Shea, is not a Catholic encyclical in the traditional sense. It is a pastoral document of the conciliar sect—a movement that has systematically replaced the supernatural mission of the Church with a humanitarian agenda, substituted the Kingship of Christ with the cult of man, and abandoned the immutable truths of faith for the shifting sands of modern thought. Leo XIV’s call to “contemplate the face of Christ” is a pious gesture stripped of doctrinal substance, designed to lend spiritual credibility to a project that is, at its core, naturalistic, modernist, and apostate.
The faithful who cling to the integral Catholic faith—the faith of the Fathers, the Councils, and the pre-conciliar Magisterium—must reject this document not because it speaks of technology, but because it does so in a way that denies the very foundations of the faith it claims to uphold. The truth about man is indeed revealed in Christ—but only in the Christ of Calvary, the Christ of the Eucharist, the Christ who is King of kings and Lord of lords. Any “encyclical” that omits this is not a light to the nations but a shadow of the abomination of desolation foretold by Our Lord.
Source:
‘Magnifica Humanitas’: In the Face of Christ, the Truth About Man (ncregister.com)
Date: 26.05.2026