Pope Leo XIV cited the sudden rise in artificial intelligence (AI) and fast-booming technologies for his name choice as the Roman Pontiff.
Pope Leo XIV’s reign comes roughly 125 years after the death of Pope Leo XIII, who condemned socialism and defended the dignity of workers in his famous encyclical Rerum Novarum. He is most revered for being a pope at a time of great technological changes due to the industrial revolution and the rise of workers’ unions. As – News noted in 2019, the Encyclical came at a time when the world faced multiple questions about the nature of labor in the midst of the industrial revolution.
Moreover, it’s no coincidence that Leo’s Rerum Novarum (“Of New Things”) appeared in 1890—which is to say, at around the same time that the U.S. established Labor Day. In that era, factories and mass production were churning the old agricultural economy, dislocating ancient folkways, and creating new kinds of economic challenges, as well as, of course, new opportunities. Amidst all this flux, people were understandably desperate to find ways to re-establish social equilibrium.
And yet precisely because the old conservative political system was failing to maintain a just order, radical alternatives—including anarchism, socialism, and communism—were gathering strength.
In response, enlightened leaders in the center stepped in, realizing that new and creative thinking was needed to fend off revolution.
When it was revealed that Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, the first American to hold the papacy, had selected the name Leo XIV, commentators immediately took it as a sign he would follow in the footsteps of his predecessor. Speaking with the College of Cardinals on Saturday, the Holy Father all but confirmed those suspicions.
“I chose to take the name Leo XIV. There are different reasons for this, but mainly because Pope Leo XIII in his historic Encyclical Rerum Novarum addressed the social question in the context of the first great industrial revolution,” the Holy Father said.
“In our own day, the Church offers to everyone the treasury of her social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defence of human dignity, justice and labor,” he added.
