Magnifica Humanitas: A View from the Higher Ed Balcony

Jun 24, 2026

By Cabrini Pak, PhD

When Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical Magnifica Humanitas came out, I decided to put together a little study group and invite faculty and staff who were around to join me for lunch and a brief discussion for three consecutive Tuesdays. With all the media hype around it, many would think that the encyclical’s central focus was AI. It was not. Rather, it focused on the grandeur of humanity, which shines a light on this AI-infused era, and not the other way around. Res novae, or new things, have been around since the beginning of time. Pope Leo XIV’s goal was to show how the human community can and should respond to them, which includes AI, but does not have to be fixated on them.

We explored his work with a specific lens: through the eyes of a community dedicated to forming our students, most of whom are in their teens and twenties. At The Catholic University of America, we have critical tasks that permeate our community of faculty, staff, and students: discover, preserve and impart the truth in all its forms, with particular reference to the needs and opportunities of the nation¹. At the same time we are called to pursue our objectives through the formation of an authentic human community animated by Christ, with special attention to service to Church and society, pastoral care, cultural dialogue, and evangelization².

In that spirit, it strikes me that our young people need formation and accompaniment in three ways: fighting the darkness, using prudence with power, and always working towards a common good. In order to do this, faculty and staff must be exemplars for our students and provide opportunities to dialogue openly and freely about the issues that arise in each activity. I offer a few thoughts below.

Fight the Darkness

In §212, Pope Leo XIV speaks of the subtle temptation to think that the problems of our time are too big, we are too small, and that our choices, therefore, cannot make a difference³. Such thoughts come from the enemy and should be rejected. He speaks of how we can “do our part” to work for the good of all. At the individual level, we must “be faithful to the truth, invest in education, cultivate relationships and love justice and peace” (§236). All of these activities are well aligned with the Catholic mission of our university and give our students an opportunity for active accompaniment within our community. In fact, our motto, Deus Lux Mea Est, or “God is my light,” is the very antidote to the darkness that seeks to tempt us to despair. Jesus Christ, love incarnate, is the light of the human race (Jn 1:4), our north star. When we orient ourselves to Him, the questions around the right use of any emerging technology will naturally first seek the truth about its nature and place in service to the human community. Those answers will then empower human beings to rightly guide its deployment in our markets and in society.

Be Prudent with Power

Pope Leo XIV mentioned the word “power” ninety times in his letter, highlighting how a culture of power can normalize something like war, and in an AI-infused age, digitally accelerate warfare. Included in the armory of power is human communication. When communication flows are fragmented, biased toward conflict, or used to amplify propaganda like a false realism that war is inevitable, it makes shared discernment more difficult (§192). We can do our part by first disarming our words (§213). We are called to examine our own consciences – to what degree can we recognize aggression and biases in our own words, whether spoken or shared via social media? When we are more mindful with our words, we can then build stronger bonds of fraternity, make room for the voices of victims, and revive authentic dialogue. In this way, we can more effectively reject the paradigm of war and shift from a culture of war to a culture of negotiation.

Higher education is immersed in the written word, and a good liberal arts education will ensure that future generations remain historically conscious of our use of words to wield power. We see how words created positive movements in our history, like Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech, and how they caused great damage, like Enoch Powell’s “Rivers of Blood” speech.

Prudence is the virtue that disposes practical reason to discern our true good in every circumstance, and to choose the right means of achieving it.

Prudence is the virtue that disposes practical reason to discern our true good in every circumstance, and to choose the right means of achieving it⁴. Here at the Busch School of Business, I explicitly teach and help my students apply the virtue of prudence in their consulting and product development work. It is not always easy, but with practice, it becomes a more natural approach to the problems we see in our everyday context. Last semester, my sections worked to build a course planning bot for their fellow students, and the most powerful moment was when they naturally entered an active dialogue about protecting their fellow students from forming “bad habits” by using a bot and not doing the due diligence to construct a good schedule on their own first. I did nothing to prompt the dialogue – it came from them. When they hone the virtue of prudence, the common good becomes a more realistic and hopeful goal.

Work Towards a Common Good

Pope Leo XIV mentioned the common good eighty-two times in Magnifica Humanitas. He asks the question, “What are we building?” Is it a modern-day Babel or a new Jerusalem? He stresses the importance of building a civilization of love that seeks the good of all. If we take the definition of a common good as the sum total of social conditions that allow people, individually or in groups, to reach their fulfilment more fully and easily,⁵ or in word, to flourish, then working towards that goal requires attentiveness to three things. First, it requires grounding in a firm and active relationship with God (§11). Second, it means we must accept the limits and weaknesses of humanity without considering them an error to be corrected (§12). In other words, rather than seek “unlimited upgrades,” recognize our nature and interdependence and work with mutual care and true solidarity. Third, recognizing our shared responsibility and having the courage to take necessary steps to correct injustices and seek the good of all is essential to realizing a common good. He tells us not to be intimidated by tensions or differences, because they can become creative forces when guided by shared responsibility (§13). If I had to sum up these three things, it would be formation in the Christian life – learning how to be a loving member of a Christian community and bringing that love and light to the world beyond our walls. What better place to do this than in a community setting at a Catholic university like ours?

I look forward to bringing more of the lessons from Magnifica Humanitas into my living labs here at the Busch School, as my students experiment with ways to realize a common good with prudence and courage, fighting the darkness together, not alone.