The Age of Great Changes
Humanity has arrived on the threshold of epochal changes. Accelerated technological development risks polarising society in a radical manner. We risk facing a future society in which a select few members of the elite have access to technology, along with all its consequences: wealth, access to new cures and medical techniques, sufficient and high-quality food, education, luxury holidays, highly comfortable housing, and the ability to govern public life. Conversely, we risk having a vast mass of people who will have nothing. We risk reaching a point where the poor will not even have access to clean water or energy, which will become prohibitively expensive because it will be channelled into powering the servers that produce Artificial Intelligence.
With the aid of technology, dictators could control the population in a brutal fashion. We are already witnessing the initial attempts in this regard within authoritarian regimes in Asia, which are laying the foundations for a type of system that we might define as cyberfascism. This type of regime is also desired by technoligarchs in the West, who are already discussing the notion that only members of the elites should have the legitimate right to start families, whilst the rest of humanity would serve as mere labour, akin to robots.
Is there an adequate response to this vision of humanity’s future?
Most certainly, yes. A coherent answer appears in Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas. It is an encyclical that constructs a Christian vision of humanity’s future, built upon the fundamental principles of the Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church. These principles possess a solid biblical foundation and give concrete form to the wisdom gathered over centuries by the community of those who strive to follow the teachings of our Saviour, Jesus Christ.
This concerns, first and foremost, the dignity of the human person. Furthermore, it concerns solidarity. It concerns subsidiarity. It concerns the common good. People are not mere labour; they are not resources. They are the sons and daughters of God, elevated to this dignity by the sacrifice of the Saviour. Upon these principles, we can rebuild the cohesion of human society. We can apply principles and values such as generosity, kindness, integrity, and honesty. We can champion love for one’s neighbour, and we can care for everything around us, which is God’s creation.
The Social Doctrine is based upon profound documents, such as Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum Novarum or Saint Pope John Paul II’s Centesimus Annus. Fundamentally, these documents do not introduce grand innovations, but rather provide anchors for human thought. They cast a new light upon the values proclaimed by Jesus Christ two millennia ago. Within them lies the most adequate answer both to the advancement of technology and to climate challenges, as well as to the anxieties surrounding the future of mankind. Therefore, we have every reason to welcome this age of great changes with hope, confidence, and courage, because, to borrow a phrase from the cinema, up there, Somebody loves us.
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