Cardinal Tobin: Individuals matter, each and every person
My dear sisters and brothers in Christ,
Magnifica Humanitas, the first encyclical of our Holy Father Pope Leo XIV, is a veritable compendium of Catholic Social Teaching. It tackles head-on the challenges and the opportunities of artificial intelligence by reminding us that machines and technology—no matter how sophisticated—can never equal, let alone replace, the dignity of the human person.
“It is individuals that matter, each and every person, together with their families,” the pope writes. Because the human person is made in the image and likeness of God, everything else is secondary. This is the fundamental principle of Catholic Social Teaching. Nothing is more important than human dignity, and anything that threatens the incomparable value of individual persons, “together with their families,” must be challenged and prevented from becoming an obstacle to human flourishing.
In the section of Magnifica Humanitas that is devoted to “the foundations of social doctrine” (#’s 48–58, see selection below), Pope Leo calls our attention to three key insights. First, he describes the relationship of the human person to “the very heart of our faith: the mystery of the living God, revealed in Jesus Christ, who, as a communion of Persons — Father, Son and Holy Spirit — is love itself in relationship, expressed in the mutual gift of self and in sharing with the world.” The dignity of each and every human person is rooted in his or her participation in the mystery of God’s inner life. The Creator has destined us to be united with Himself, the God who made us, and to reflect God’s magnificent goodness in everything we say and do.
Secondly, the pope reminds us of the Church’s consistent teaching that the value of persons does not depend on what they achieve or produce. “There are rights that apply to everyone simply by virtue of being human,” the Holy Father says, and precisely because they are God-given, “no human power can legitimately deny or arbitrarily limit them.”
Human persons are equal in dignity regardless of their gender, race, political and economic status, or ethnicity. “In addition to these notions,” Pope Leo writes, “there is also the more profound and important level of ontological dignity. This is the dignity that belongs to every human being simply by virtue of existing, of having been willed, created and loved by God. No sin, failure, humiliation or exclusion can diminish the profound value of a human life that God has willed and called into being.”
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