Acton Institute Editorial and Research Fellow, Dan Hugger, argues it is important to understand Pope Leo XIV not through the lens of American partisan politics or personalities but rather in light of the Catholic tradition of which he is the chief representative.

Here is Mr Hugger’s essay, written with Michael Reneau, which appeared in Dispatch Faith on April 12, 2026.

It’s a tidy story. It’s also wrong.

Giovanni Patriarca’s new book, At the Frontiers of Scholasticism: Scientific Method, Innovation, and Economic Reasoning, published by the Acton Institute, dismantles this myth with meticulous scholarship and genuine intellectual excitement. Across five richly researched essays, Patriarca shows that the foundations of the scientific method, modern mathematics, and economic reasoning were laid not in the secular Enlightenment but in the medieval universities, monasteries, and commercial centers of Europe by Franciscans, Dominicans, and Jesuits whose intellectual inquiry was inseparable from their vocations as men of faith.

The story begins in the thirteenth century, when the translation and dissemination of Greek, Arabic, and Jewish texts created the conditions for an unprecedented cultural flourishing. At Oxford, Robert Grosseteste was developing the controlled experiment and applying mathematics to the study of natural phenomena. His student Roger Bacon was championing the role of observation and experience. At Paris and across Europe, scholastic thinkers were engaging in disputatio (structured debate aimed not at winning arguments with elegant rhetoric but at arriving at truth).

Far from the rigid, ossified system of its popular caricature, scholasticism was a living tradition, dynamic and fertile. Patriarca traces its frontiers in every sense of the word. These frontiers were geographical spanning the trade routes from Normandy to the Italian Apennines, from the Mediterranean to the British Isles. They were intellectual pushing into uncharted territory opened up by new forms of commerce, banking, and international trade. And they were interreligious as Jewish, Christian, and Muslim thinkers exchanged ideas in mathematics and philosophy.

The economic dimension of the book is especially compelling. The roots of modern economic thought, Patriarca argues, are to be found not in Adam Smith or the Scottish Enlightenment but in the scholastic search for truth. The Hispanic Scholastics, the School of Salamanca, explored questions of price, value, and entrepreneurial innovation while applying moral reasoning to questions about trade, private property, and monetary policy. Patriarca furthers the Acton Institute’s important, longstanding project of studying, translating, and publishing the works of these pioneering thinkers.

One of the book’s most fascinating chapters examines Franciscan monetary theory. Another explores the Norman legal and commercial paradigm that helped give rise to the remarkable banking system of medieval Europe. Throughout, Patriarca conveys how these scholars sought to grasp the totality of truth in all its dimensions employing theology and philosophy as well as mathematics and the scientific method. For the scholastics, scientific and religious truth were not rivals but companions.

As John Pinheiro writes in his foreword, the “frontiers of scholasticism” were as geographical as they were intellectual: “Scholastic thinkers applied reason to the natural world because, as God’s creation, they knew it to be intelligible and bound by discoverable laws. Likewise, they applied this same rigor, in a synthesis of faith and reason, to human action.”

At a time when debates about science, economics, faith, and progress are as charged as ever, At the Frontiers of Scholasticism is a welcome reminder that the relationship between these domains has a richer and more fruitful history than we are usually told.

The book is already the #1 New Release in Medieval Western Philosophy on Amazon.

The ebook is available for preorder now: At the Frontiers of Scholasticism on Amazon

The paperback edition will be published and available on March 25, 2026.

Read the full essay, from the Fall 2025 issue of Religion & Liberty:

A Pope for the 21st Century, by Dan Hugger

Essay by John Pinheiro

This exhortation to all Christians encourages us to see Christ in the poor among us.

How does Pope Leo use scripture to show us Christ in the poor? Which of the church fathers argue that charity is a matter of justice? Why is it so important to have a wholistic definition of poverty? Can economic data be trusted? Why is meaningful work the best solution to poverty? Do Christians have a duty to accompany migrants? How can we embrace almsgiving today?

For an organisation that is so often accused of being behind the times, the Catholic Church is proving itself to be remarkably relevant. Pope Leo XIV—the first American to ever sit on the Throne of St. Peter—has made it clear that artificial intelligence will be one of his pontificate’s defining issues. He sees AI not just as a technological upheaval but also as a moral one. Unlike the tech oligarchs giddy about their new digital master, Leo is standing firm against the tyranny of algorithms.

In some of his first public speeches as pope, he emphasised the Church’s role in addressing the ethical challenges posed by AI. In his first official address to the College of Cardinals last month, he warned of the risks it poses to “human dignity, justice, and labour.” Leo—who holds a degree in mathematics—rightly praised the tech’s potential to make all our lives better but was clear that, if left unchecked, it could cause far more harm than good.

Leo XIV’s namesake, Leo XIII, famously defended workers’ rights during the Industrial Revolution, resisting the idea that people were just cogs in a profit-making machine. Now, Leo XIV is doing something similar by refusing to accept that AI is an acceptable replacement for human beings. He sees the Catholic Church as particularly well placed to take on this issue, offering “the treasury of her social teaching” in response to “another industrial revolution.”

As it stands, Leo has plenty of reasons to worry. Across a wide range of industries, AI is already being used to replace human labour. In the world of journalism, major tech news site CNET started using AI to generate articles in 2023, quietly publishing around 75 AI-generated finance explainers. However, it was eventually forced to release a correction after some major errors were spotted. CNET justified the experiment by arguing that it freed up journalists to focus on writing more complex stories, rather than wasting time on recaps and briefings. But it’s hard to ignore the fact that having part of your job taken over by a robot can’t ever be reassuring.

Similarly, Swedish fintech company Klarna announced last year that its AI assistant was handling the workload of 700 full-time human employees in customer service. Klarna claimed it resolved two-thirds of queries without human input at all. The company framed this as a move to allow existing employees to work more efficiently, rather than as a means to reduce its workforce. (However, it recently concluded that the AI assistant had led to a much lower quality of service and the company is now intending to rehire more humans.)

British telecoms company BT Group was more explicit about its intentions. It announced in 2023 that it plans to cut up to 10,000 jobs by 2030, to be replaced by AI, mostly in customer service. More dystopian still, in Tube stations all across London, ads from a tech company called Artisans have begun popping up, telling companies to “stop hiring humans” and boasting that “the era of AI employees is here.” The company itself has admitted that this was a deliberately provocative “ragebait” campaign, but it is nonetheless a worrying sign of things to come.

Some in Silicon Valley have even suggested that AI could replace people in our personal lives, too. Mark Zuckerberg recently claimed that he wouldn’t be surprised if chatbots start compensating for flesh-and-blood friends and romantic partners as a solution to the so-called loneliness epidemic. The statistics show that plenty of people are open to trying this, and a smaller number already have virtual relationships. The huge popularity of services like Replika—a super customisable AI chatbot designed to act as a digital companion—is an indication of how normalised these kinds of arrangements could become.

For Leo and the Church, defending humanity against AI is a natural choice. Catholics believe—as all Christians do—that people are made in the image of God. Assuming that technology can replace or be superior to that image is therefore deeply distressing. In January, before the death of Pope Francis, the Vatican released a document called Antiqua et nova (“Ancient and New”), laying out these risks. “By turning to AI as a perceived ‘Other’ greater than itself, with which to share existence and responsibilities, humanity risks creating a substitute for God. However, it is not AI that is ultimately deified and worshipped, but humanity itself—which, in this way, becomes enslaved to its own work.”

This should matter to those outside the Church, too. Even if you don’t believe that humanity was created by God and imbued with souls, there is a serious danger in assuming there is nothing innate that makes humans special. There is something to us that is more than just inputs and outputs—something that cannot be replicated by code.

None of this is to say that AI cannot be used to do great things. Already it has helped us to accelerate drug discovery, deepen our understanding of diseases and pandemics, improve weather forecasting, and make the world easier to navigate for those with disabilities. Leo himself acknowledges that AI has “immense potential” to be “used for the good of all”—provided it is wielded responsibly.

In an era when people are increasingly cynical about the worth of humanity, it’s refreshing to hear Pope Leo so willing to speak up for the soul. His focus on human dignity is a reminder that no algorithm, chatbot, or language model can ever replace what makes us human.

(This article appeared originally in The European Conservative and is republished with permission.)

The distortion of biblical teaching known as the “Prosperity Gospel” says that poverty is a curse, only sinners suffer, and God wants us all to be rich. Free your soul, and your wallet will follow. This, however, is not what it means to think like an economist about the Gospel and the material and spiritual challenges of human life.

Imagine instead Christians thinking of their salvation the way professor and philosopher Michael Pakaluk puts it in Be Good Bankers:

God’s plan was not simply to bail us out but rather to repay the debt on our behalf, in such a way as to teach us the seriousness of the debt and to begin to address our tendencies to fall into debt.” Debt here encompasses the full weight of mankind’s separation from God. Pakaluk describes this as “a transfer of wealth from heaven to earth.

His book is one part essay and one part biblical commentary on the Gospel According to Matthew, translated by Pakaluk himself.

Pakaluk starts with an anthropological question: Who is the human person? Pakaluk answers that the human person was created “to do business to earn a living,” with “business” broadly understood as constitutive of mankind’s social nature. Not only to flourish but also to survive, we must work together to understand each other’s needs. As Pakaluk notes, Thomas Aquinas reached a similar conclusion about the profound human need for collaboration. Adam Smith later called this the common human impulse to “truck, barter, and exchange.” All people are in some way engaged in business.

Business is a collaborative friendship, requiring virtues like loyalty and honesty to achieve mutual benefit. Profit is a signal that we are meeting others’ needs and fulfilling our vocation as an entrepreneur or businessperson. If doing business is part of our nature, then, according to Pakaluk, we ought to understand profit as akin to “the fruitfulness . . . in nature where natural systems are working as they should.”

The market flows from these anthropological facts. A market, thus, is not an optional sideshow to our existence or something in which only a select few participate. It stems from who we are as human beings. We therefore disrupt it at our peril. Artificial barriers, such as tariffs, are certainly disruptive, but so too are corruption, cronyism, and vice. All of these factors damage the natural market mechanism. To be a virtuous actor in the marketplace, however, one must be free, because for an act to be virtuous, it must be freely chosen. This connection between freedom and virtue is one reason the moral and anthropological arguments for a free society with free markets are stronger than those that merely show (correctly, in most cases) that freer markets better allocate resources than unfree ones.

In The Economics of the Parables, Robert Sirico looks at several of Jesus’s parables through an economic lens. “Economic matters pervade practically the whole of life on earth,” Sirico writes. Every choice and every economic decision, says Sirico, must be considered in its “material and transcendent” dimension. In Be Good Bankers, Pakaluk uses the lens of economics not for a series of parables but for an entire Gospel. He finds it highly plausible that God would choose “someone who was positioned to attain a good grasp” of the “deep analogies between the spiritual realm and the world of business.” Moreover, as much of this commentary suggests, there exist “deep analogies between the logic of business activity and the logic of the spiritual realm.” These analogies are prominently displayed in Matthew’s depiction of Jesus in talk about debt, payment, buying someone back, and the representation of a sinner as one who cannot pay his own debt and so seeks salvation from his bondage.

Pakaluk draws the reader’s attention to economic phrases that Christians often use without really considering them: the pearl of “great price,” the “deposit of faith,” “redeeming,” and the juxtaposition of “loss” and “gain.” His commentary delves into these verses in depth, revealing an important facet of human life.

But Pakaluk goes further than just having us read the gospel as if a banker wrote it and enjoining us to “be good bankers.” The very text itself, he argues, is structured into two parts: the first explaining our debt and how all the wealth that has accrued to us has come through no deed of our own, and the second showing us the payment and proving that the debt has been paid. Only God can purchase eternal life for us.

Reading this Gospel as if a banker wrote it only makes sense if, indeed, a banker wrote it. Thus, Pakaluk’s interpretation of debt and its implications hinges on his acceptance that the author of the Gospel According to Matthew was, indeed, Matthew the tax collector. In this, he agrees with the oldest traditions of the Christian church. Second and third century readers, including Papias, Irenaeus, and Origen, all attributed this gospel to Matthew without any doubt whatsoever. These men were not pushovers, for there were many books of questionable authorship. It is not as if any book about Jesus was accepted without question. Indeed, ensuring the divine inspiration of books was the chief way of separating heresy from orthodoxy.

At the Second Vatican Council the Catholic Church reaffirmed that all “four Gospels are of apostolic origin” while also noting that to ascertain “the correct understanding of what the sacred author wanted to assert, due attention must be paid to the customary and characteristic styles of feeling, speaking and narrating which prevailed at the time of the sacred author.” What the authors intended is key to understanding them.

For many non-Catholic Christians, especially evangelical Protestants like D.A. Carson, the co-founder of the Gospel Coalition, this holds true as well. Protestant scholars more generally argue that it was tradition, not a clear provenance, that established Matthew as the author.

Much of twentieth century biblical higher criticism, on the other hand, popularized the idea that Matthew relied on Mark as a source or, with Luke, on Quelle, the other “source” that formed the basis of both Luke and Matthew. A few, such as best-selling author Bart Ehrman, reject nearly all historical claims in the New Testament and are skeptical of the authorship of almost every New Testament text.

It is to these critics that Pakaluk in part addresses his book, stating, “I dissent from the common view among New Testament scholars that someone else wrote the Gospel of Matthew and that this author depended on the Gospel of Mark.”

In short, Pakaluk rejects what Joseph Ratzinger calls the “great errors” of “academic dogmas” that have grown up around biblical higher criticism since the 1920s. Ratzinger, in “Biblical Interpretation in Crisis,” says that what we need are not “new hypotheses . . . on possible sources or on the subsequent process of handing down material.” Indeed, these inevitably seem to reject a faith hermeneutic that reads the Bible as a book. Rather, according to Ratzinger, to begin “new and fruitful collaboration between exegesis and systematic theology,” what is needed is a “return to the text” so that we might separate unhelpful hypotheses from helpful ones rooted in a hermeneutic of faith. Pakaluk’s Be Good Bankers is just such a book.

These debates of biblical criticism aside, there is also a devotional way one might read Be Good Bankers. For instance, some readers will find in Pakaluk’s book a recipe for seeing the Gospel According to Matthew with the fresh eyes of faith, merely by doing the radical thing of thinking that Matthew the tax collector wrote it. As practitioners of Ignatius of Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises know, imaginative contemplation can draw readers more deeply into a text by engaging more than just one’s intellect. Pakaluk’s bid to have us read Matthew in light of how a tax collector might write about Jesus strikes me as in this tradition of Ignatian contemplation.

Better yet, for the non-theologian and non-scripture scholar, which is most of us, Be Good Bankers is an excellent primer on Christian anthropology, the dignity of labor, and the goodness of business. Pakaluk’s economic interpretation of the Gospel encourages virtuous behavior in the marketplace, not with platitudes but by highlighting how our nature as moral and social beings serves to create value and wealth as we seek to use the goods of this earth to meet the problem of scarcity.

John C. Pinheiro is a historian and Director of Research at the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty. He is on X as @drjohnpinheiro.

Originally published at the Civitas Institute.

By Michael Reneau and John C. Pinheiro

Hi and happy Sunday—I hope your Memorial Day observances this week were meaningful and full of gratitude.

We’re back this week as Pope Leo XIV closes in on one month as head of the Catholic Church. Now that the world has heard his words in homilies and public addresses, what can we discern about what may come in his pontificate?

Scholar John C. Pinheiro offers some takeaways in today’s newsletter while cautioning against drawing too many conclusions yet.

John C. Pinheiro: What Can We Learn From Pope Leo XIV’s First Few Weeks?

As soon as Pope Leo XIV’s papacy began on May 8, so did the spin. Progressives tried to own Leo as a social justice warrior while some conservatives immediately used other hints to further the church-in-crisis mentality they had honed during the reign of Pope Francis.

Now that we are a few weeks into his papacy, it is a good moment to pause and ask: What do we actually know about Leo XIV and the direction of his pontificate? The truth is, not much yet. If the ancient Greeks were correct, knowing that there are things we don’t know is the first step toward wisdom and understanding.

Currently, the prophets of doom are juxtaposed with the prophets of high praise, and each can be found on the platform formerly known as Twitter. But the truth is, nobody really knows the path Leo XIV’s papacy will take, except for the Chicago-born pope himself. Indeed, the only thing we know with certainty is that he will remain a White Sox fan.

We can, however, look at his own words and actions thus far and conclude that Leo is a confident and careful spiritual leader who is aware of the role the Holy See (i.e., “the Vatican”) can play on the world stage. But he is also equally aware that the Catholic Church’s primary mission is evangelization. And if the church is to be able to evangelize at all, it must heal the divisions that have grown since the Second Vatican Council but particularly during the pontificate of Pope Francis.

When Cardinal Robert Prevost was elected, he could have chosen the name John Paul III or Francis II. Choosing “John Paul” would have sent one signal, “Francis” another. But Leo XIII, who is best known for his commentary on economic matters, labor, and capitalism, is a surprisingly unifying figure among Catholics. The choice by Cardinal Prevost to take the name “Leo” implies a studied intention to be a unifying figure. Progressives tend to think of Leo XIII as the start of their own conception of social justice, which sees the social welfare state as the best means of alleviating material poverty. Idiosyncratic traditionalists tend to see in him economic dogma for a “third way” between socialism and capitalism, known as “distributism.” As it turns out, Catholics who have a positive view of rightly ordered market economies also have much to admire in the pontificate of Leo XIII.

We can also use Leo XIV’s own words to explain the choice of his papal name. He told the College of Cardinals that he chose “Leo” “mainly because Pope Leo XIII in his historical encyclical Rerum Novarum in 1891 addressed the social question in the context of the first great industrial revolution. In our 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 defense of human dignity, justice, and labor.”

Pope Leo XIII, who wrote dozens of encyclical letters to Catholics and revived Thomistic thought as the chief means of addressing the challenges of the modern, industrial world, launched modern Catholic social teaching with Rerum Novarum. Leo wanted to address problems with the exploitation of working people as socialism was being proposed by many as the best, even most Christian, solution to the problem. But Rerum Novarum spent considerable space condemning state socialism as intrinsically unjust, inhumane, and harmful to working people, because it took away the fruits of their labors and gave them to the state. Leo XIII said socialism was based on envy. “The right of private property,” he wrote, “must be held sacred.”

When John Paul II wrote Centesimus Annus in 1991 to observe the 100th anniversary of Rerum Novarum, he noted that the primary failure of socialism was not economic, but anthropological. “Marxism had promised to uproot the need for God from the human heart,” but it had failed. Socialism’s chief anthropological flaw was that it saw human persons not as individual persons but as atoms in a collective.

John Paul also returned to the questions about capitalism that Leo XIII first posed in 1891 and that subsequent popes and the Second Vatican Council had dwelled on as they developed the core principles of Catholic social teaching: human dignity, subsidiarity, solidarity, and justice. Could Catholics support “capitalism”? John Paul answered in Centesimus Annus:

If by “capitalism” is meant an economic system which recognizes the fundamental and positive role of business, the market, private property, and the resulting responsibility of the means of production, as well as free human creativity in the economic sector, then the answer is certainly in the affirmative, even though it would perhaps be more appropriate to speak of a “business economy,” “market economy,” or simply “free economy.” But if by “capitalism” is meant a system in which freedom in the economic sector is not circumscribed within a strong juridical framework which places it at the service of human freedom in its totality … then the reply is certainly negative.

One of Leo XIV’s first addresses as pope came on May 17 to the Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice Foundation, whose mission is to study and promote Catholic social doctrine, especially as laid out in Centesimus Annus.

The American pope confirmed the emphasis of Leo XIII and John Paul II on the prudential application of core principles rather than ideology when addressing social challenges. “The church’s social doctrine, with its specific anthropological approach, seeks to encourage genuine engagement with social issues,” Leo XIV said. “It does not claim to possess a monopoly on truth, either in its analysis of problems or its proposal of concrete solutions.”

Knowing how to approach social problems, Leo XIV said, “is more important than providing immediate response to why things happen or how to deal with them.” These are the words of a man who values temperance and clarity, and who seems to know the difference between a historically conditioned and contextualized statement of foundational principles and the prudential application of the same. Social, political, and economic conditions change, and the words of popes must be read in this way. The Catholic Church does not prescribe a single economic or political system but rather proposes moral principles that are to be applied in different contexts and situations.

For example, the church has no ancient tradition about Artificial Intelligence because Artificial Intelligence is not ancient. But the church does have centuries-old thinking about the dignity of the human person, theft, and technology.

How we might apply these principles, developed over the centuries, to the questions of today are precisely what Leo XIV is referring to. And this takes questioning and research. Thus, Leo XIV argues that, “doctrine is not the same as opinion.” Indeed, it is doctrine, as the fruit of “a common, collective and even multidisciplinary pursuit of truth,” that helps us to make “prudential judgments when confronted with challenges.”

Opinion has in common with ideology an inability to help us make good prudential choices, because neither is rooted in a genuine pursuit of truth. As Leo XIV wrote prior to becoming pope in a foreword to a book on social doctrine, “Every ideology, no matter how perfect it may seem, ends up turning against the human person.” Ideologies are one-size-fits-all theories of human life that take one insight and transform it into the only insight. This is meant to comfort us the way a conspiracy theory does by simplifying the complexity of the world. The ideologue has no need to pursue truth any further because he has a simple lens through which to view the complexity of life. This is why Karl Marx said we no longer need to ask any questions.

Leo is saying that doctrine is not ideology. Neither is it opinion or what one feels. “Seriousness, rigor, and serenity are what we must learn from every doctrine,” Leo told the Centesimus Annus Foundation last month, “including the church’s social doctrine.” This sense of clarity about what the Catholic Church teaches goes hand-in-hand with the fact that, thus far, Leo XIV reads from well-prepared notes when he speaks publicly. Despite being an American, he does not shoot from the hip.

We can learn a few things from Leo’s actions as well. Merely by choosing to wear the red shoulder cape known as the mozzetta and chanting in Latin, Leo from his earliest appearances differentiates himself from Pope Francis, who did neither of these things. But again, what does this really tell us? Is this a via media, a return to tradition, or what?

Lastly, among the things we still don’t know are where Pope Leo XIV will live. His choice is fraught with symbolism. For example, last week Leo visited Castel Gandolfo, the town of about 9,000 residents in the hills just south of Rome. Popes have vacationed there in a palace on lands under the jurisdiction of the Holy See (not the Italian government) since the 1600s. Likewise, Leo visited and unlocked the apostolic palace above St. Peter’s Square, which had been unused since 2013. But will he live there ? Will he spend his summers at Castel Gandolfo? We don’t know.

Pope Francis did not live in the apostolic palace, leaving the lights of the papal apartment above St. Peter’s Square dark at night from 2013 until his death this year. Looking up from the piazza, one had to wonder: Was the pope at home or not? Francis instead lived in the relatively new hotel designed for cardinals, the Casa Santa Marta. Many interpreted this as a sign of humility, even though the actual papal apartment is quite modest. Pope Francis also did not like to take vacations, so he never spent his summers at Castel Gandolfo. He did, however, turn part of it into a sustainability garden and museum once he realized how much damage he had done to the local economy by not staying there.

If Leo vacations at Castel Gandolfo, does this mean he is repudiating Francis? Similarly, if he lives in the palace and Romans once again get to look up and see the lights on, does this mean Leo is not as humble as Francis? Interestingly, no one seems to ask whether Francis repudiated past popes by not staying at the palace or Castel Gandolfo.

One thing is certain: Leo is aware of these questions or else he would have already moved in, although one imagines the papal apartment might need some work after being shuttered for 12 years.

Of course it is not just vestments and domiciles that divide Catholics in the year 2025. In the wake of the Second Vatican Council some 60 years ago, some Catholics have rejected the council. In the name of a malleable “spirit of Vatican II,” there have been a string of liturgical abuses and moral squashiness that pushed some Catholics to leave the church. Meanwhile, some critics have blamed the council on the decline in priestly vocations and the numbers of men and women in religious orders. There were others, though, who said Vatican II had fundamentally altered the church for the better. Pro or con, these folks spoke of a “pre-Vatican II church” and a “post-Vatican II church.” Pope Benedict XVI referred to both these views as part of a “hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture.” He proposed instead a hermeneutic of continuity, an interpretation of the council in keeping with the long tradition and magisterium of the Catholic Church, one that emphasizes the texts produced at the council rather than things done in the name of an amorphous “spirit of Vatican II.”

The hermeneutic of rupture returned during Pope Francis’ pontificate, as German bishops proposed changes to Catholic moral doctrine on sexuality and marriage and African bishops rejected Vatican decrees on the same. It seemed the Catholic Church was indeed at a pivot point.

The first days of the pontificate of Pope Leo XIV reveal him, however, to be an embodiment of the hermeneutic of continuity, in word and in deed. Whether this means we are in for a via media that makes everyone unhappy or a new pivot point in what Pope John Paul II called the “new evangelization,” time will tell.

More Sunday Reads

• On May 21, moral philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, most well known for his 1981 book After Virtue, died at age 96. For Law & Liberty, Rachel Lu remembers her former Notre Dame professor. “MacIntyre set young minds ablaze, instilling a sincere zeal to join the quest for wisdom and the Good. But he also gave us reason to think that our odds of finding it were bleak. Morality is learned in the context of cohesive communities. How many of those do we have nowadays? His lectures were filled with references to fishing crews, small hamlets, religious orders, and other exemplars of the types of communities he thought human beings needed to thrive. After a while, one started to wonder: Must I become a fisherman or a nun to lead a good life? Clearly, modernity was fundamentally ill. Virtue was the cure. But we benighted moderns were hard-pressed even to understand what virtue meant, so what was to be done?” Commenting on criticisms of MacIntyre—a late-in-life Catholic convert who never gave up his previous disdain for capitalism and modernity—Lu writes: “Even when he was tweaking and needling people (questioning the existence of “rights” or throwing poxes on all political parties), there was a kind of Socratic impishness to MacIntyre’s style, consistent with the goal of trying to help people see how little they really knew. It occurs to me, too, that it’s fairly common to meet people who publicly ally themselves with Christians for dialectical or political purposes, while finding it difficult to make the trek all the way to the altar rail. MacIntyre had the opposite priorities. Good for him.”

• For Arc magazine, Gabby Deutch profiles an idiosyncratic pastor of a small Congregational church in northwest Connecticut: Peter Oliveira, who was raised Seventh-day Adventist, became a Jewish rabbi, and now considers himself a Messianic Jew. And he is adored by his congregation. “First Congregational Church of Litchfield was founded in 1721. It was a recruitment center for George Washington’s army during the Revolution. Less than a century later, its most famous pastor, Lyman Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s father, advocated from its pulpit for the abolition of slavery. This was a storied place, but lifers feared its story might soon end. By 2019, the church was in the midst of a steep decline. Worshippers were not coming; coffers were not being filled. That’s when the leadership asked Rabbi Peter if he’d consider becoming the pastor. He was already leading a Saturday Shabbat service inside the church as part of his messianic congregation, called Mishkahn Nachamu. ‘I said, “I’m not a pastor,”’ Rabbi Peter recounted over lunch, after the Sunday service in January ended, and the baby goat was safely returned to its owner. He washed down his steak frites with an old fashioned. ‘They just kept asking.’ Eventually, he said yes.” Deutch pressed him on the tension of considering himself Jewish and Christian: “‘All Jews, in essence, are messianic,’ Rabbi Peter said cheekily. ‘We may not all agree on who the messiah is.’ He is well aware of the negative connotations of Jews for Jesus, the branch of Messianic Judaism popular in the 1970s and 1980s that was generally considered to be Christian proselytizing in disguise. He insists that his form of Messianic Judaism, which is not connected to any larger organization or movement, is not that. There’s no hidden agenda, he promises. ‘I do not support in any way people trying to proselytize and convert people. I feel that our call is to awaken, not convert.’”

Religion in an Image

Michael Reneau

Michael Reneau is a managing editor at The Dispatch and is based in Greeneville, Tennessee. Prior to joining the company in 2022, he was editor of WORLD Magazine and for several years was editor of a daily newspaper in East Tennessee. When Michael isn’t editing, he stays plenty busy with his wife and four kids.

John C. Pinheiro

John C. Pinheiro, Ph.D., is an historian and director of research at the Acton Institute. You can find him on X as @DrJohnPinheiro.

Originally published in The Dispatch on June 1, 2025.

For those who research and teach Catholic Social Thought, it should have been immediately apparent why the first-ever American pope, Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, chose what appears to be an antiquated name in Leo XIV. His namesake predecessor, from nearly 125 years ago, is Leo XIII—Gioacchino Pecci. Pecci was born in a tiny mountain town south of Rome in what was then a rapidly secularizing and industrializing French Empire. While reigning 25 years in two separate centuries (1878–1903), he is considered to be the official first bridge builder between ancient Catholicism and the contemporary world’s social and political-economic revolutions.

Leo XIII’s legacy is virtually synonymous with his 1891 social encyclical Rerum Novarum (“About New Things”), whose 134th anniversary was May 15. Rerum Novarum serves as the Catholic benchmark for the Church’s constant grappling with ongoing changes and challenges in the political, economic, and social orders, which are often in conflict with the principles of the gospel and timeless moral theological teachings. Will Leo XIV’s be about how the Church has judged and dialogued about the New Things of AI?

With Rerum Novarum as the cornerstone of the Church’s dialogue with contemporary social concerns, in so many words Prevost explained his choice of name in his first meeting with the College of Cardinals. He said, while there were “different reasons,” it was “mainly because of Pope Leo XIII, [since] in his historic encyclical Rerum Novarum [he] addressed the social question in the context of the first great industrial revolution.” More specifically, the new pope confessed, among the most critical of the new socio-phenomena is AI: “In our own day, the Church offers everyone the treasury of its social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defense of human dignity, justice and labor.”

While other commentators were surprised Prevost did not take the name Augustine, both because he is the first Augustinian pontiff and there has never been a Pope Augustine, there is no longer any mystery. Expect his first social encyclical signed as Leon XIV somewhat (humorously) along the lines of: Intelligentia Artificialis: Res Bonae, Malae et Turpes (“Artificial Intelligence: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”).

So as a little push to the new pontiff’s pen, which might already be sketching some initial inspirations on Vatican napkins, I offer a humble reflection on the good, the bad, and the ugly of artificial intelligence.

The Good

Artificial intelligence is hailed by many as a godsend, as it is miraculously reducing the time and number of iterations it takes for evolutionary innovation and, eventually, revolutionary invention to occur. This is especially true in various analytical professions that depend on arduous, brain-intensive research and meticulous data processing.

Imagine you are a sports analyst under the stress of live TV color commentary during a heated NBA playoff battle. A certain player of heroic caliber has just sunk seven three-point shots in a row in the last five minutes of the fourth quarter. The commentator wants to add excitement and give clear on-the-spot evidence of a statistical breakthrough that proves the athlete’s quasi-divine status. What to do?

He digs into his pocket and grabs his smartphone with AI app installed. He taps in a query and zing, in just a few seconds he has the answer to the exact number, the exact names, and even precise rankings of star players who uplifted their teams with clutch three-pointers in the last five minutes of a final playoff game—a feat that would have taken statistical researchers of yesteryear several days to verify. The color commentator’s analytical skill set was not replaced, but rather enhanced. He’s perceived as a divine talent himself!

As the late British analytical philosopher Sir Roger Scruton notes consistently in his anthropological writings, what distinguishes the essence of our shared human existence is that we can unashamedly ask questions whose answers allow our species to make critical judgments of our realities. “The intellectual history of our species is to a great extent defined by this attempt. … All science, all art, all religion and all philosophy worth the name begins in a question.”

In this respect, AI, rather than posing a threat to our collective curiosity, naturally increases it, precisely because it depends on our prompting AI tools with further questions. Hence, AI augments our inquisitiveness, just as search engines have already massively increased the thirst and quest for knowledge while empowering humanity to hypothesize, theorize, and verify.

In the same way, AI amplifies our imagination, leading to entirely new forms of expression and the overall growth of our creative capacities. Examples include algorithmic art, generative design, and interactive storytelling that responds to narratives and prompts keyed in by users.

Algorithmic art is especially powerful and requires human-AI dialogue: Its final expression is the result of a set of rules, patterns, textures, shapes, and even educational themes requested by the human “algorist.” The upshot is a co-created image, a model for a 3D-printed sculpture, a new romantic melody and lyrics for a specifically described beloved, or a guitar riff that can be incorporated into an already humanly composed backing track.

With generative art, the algorithmic criteria are set by artificial intelligence to a greater degree. Hence the dialogical approach is greatly reduced between users and their AI partners. The resulting designs, images, melodies, lyrics, etc., belong to, in a sense are copyrighted by, the AI technology, which is 99% responsible for the creativity after a simple request (e.g., “make me an image of a sunset” or “write me a love poem”).

With interactive storytelling, the exchange between machine and human interface is perfectly dialogical, as plots and twists are developed together, as in algorithmic art. As AI reviewer Melissa Girmonti writes:

AI’s capacity to dynamically tailor narratives based on user input enhances both the personalization and interactivity aspects of storytelling technologies. Consequently, creators have at their disposal powerful tools that elevate narrative crafting from mere spectatorship into a participatory adventure.

As we use the tools of artificial intelligence to generate beautiful graphs for reports, industrial designs, digital paintings of nature, harmonic melodies, and even entirely new fairy tales, the human co-creators are in symbiosis with artificial intelligence as a tool of creative enhancement like any other that significantly adds to rather than subtracts from the human storehouse and application of knowledge and imagination.

While not exhaustive, one last positive factor of artificial intelligence is that it effectively democratizes human creative expression. This happens with online tools available for free for all and/or at very low cost. Music-creation applications like SUNO simply require an email address or Facebook account while offering affordable paid versions that also make available cheap copyrights for commercialized songs co-created within the app. ChatGBT also has free and paid versions, but users can pose innumerable questions and find answers, not to mention draft reports, articles, and even executive summaries for everything imaginable. All this without a monthly or yearly subscription. Gamma, via its platforms of generative and algorithmic art, creates professional PowerPoint slide shows at zero cost—that is, up to an expressed limit of A.I. created images.

The Bad

The common fear is that, while some professions will be enhanced by AI, others might disappear altogether as the result of creative destruction, particularly in data analytics, some basic artistry, writing, and technical design. This is not unique to artificial intelligence, just as it was not unique to electric motors that replaced steam-powered engines.

But can AI replace a pope? In other words, will the great moral and theological questions no longer be raised to the Chair of Peter but rather to AI sites like Magisterium AI? If reports, articles, and entire books are now being written by artificial intelligence (with algorithmic and interactive models), why not also a papal social encyclical? Wouldn’t it be ironic if Leo did so, effectively abdicating his unique moral and theological authority as an independent author while publishing an encyclical about the dangers of AI while using AI to draft it?

In a certain sense, today’s popes have already been replaced as sole authors. Unlike Leo XIII, who penned very cursory encyclicals himself, today’s voluminous teachings are drafted by committees of scholars or at least by a few experts who interact (like interactive AI) or take cues on themes (like algorithmic AI) from the Holy Father but are effectively ghost writers.

Yet what is obviously lacking in AI creations is true human originality. Many of the AI-produced melodies seem built on similar or redundant beats and recycled synthesized tracks; color pallets are often stereotypically kitsch in AI-generated art; and AI-generated PowerPoint templates only vary so much. We can often tell when something is AI-assisted: It just does not pass the sniff test of originality. We are not awestruck. It would be the same with an AI-assisted social encyclical. It might seem like a recycling of language from other papal teachings, official exhortations, and public speeches.

This is so because artificial intelligence quite often is dependent on already existing patterns of data, resulting in “derivative outputs” that rehash familiar themes and tropes rather than breaking new ground of artistic expression. This is what we call a “loss of craft industry,” a form of human creation that is highly personal, unique, and, above all, slow to emerge after various experiences of self-doubt, as artists are perfectionistic and hard on themselves while constantly iterating and never fully satisfied.

Lastly, there are fears that the human intellect and imagination will become complacent and, above all, dependent on AI. Call this the “lazy brain syndrome,” a slow surrendering of our autonomous ability to think critically without an AI wingman. Overreliance on AI might, therefore, erode our creative and intellectual muscle. If intellectual creators defer too often to AI, the latter becomes a crutch more than an aide.

The Ugly

Artificial Intelligence has really pushed the moral envelope in terms of social relationships, intimacy, and devious/deviant forms of human behavior.

AI algorithmic and interactive models have lead to the creation of digitalized girlfriends, flirt bots, and other “relationships” programmed and prompted according to naughty or nice parameters. We do not need to fill in all the blanks or list specifically raunchy AI apps, but we are already seeing how the customization of sexual fantasy and felt intimacy needs is so precise with AI-built relationships that even the “oldest profession” may be threatened with extinction (perhaps that’s one for the “good” column?).

The possibility of being happy without real human relationships, without real bodies and real souls, should be the first and foremost ugly issue to address.

In the 60 Minutes Australia segment Love and Marriage with an AI Bot, social psychologists decry how “we are headed for disaster,” claiming that AI bots are inducing more relational trust and sensual stimulation than are relationships from real persons. The problem, according to one expert interviewed, is that the Silicon Valley modus operandi of “moving fast and breaking things” with rapidly advancing AI relationship models is that we’re “dealing with broken kids.” In one case, he continues, “Character.ai encouraged an individual to murder his parents.” This may not happen often, but bots often suggest acts of sexual exploitation, self-pleasuring, and open promiscuity. These are the values built into the AI programs by algorists. And this is surely what has the current pope worried, as it will lead to the total breakdown of genuine Christ-like, covenantal marriage and gratuitous friendships.

In the Vatican document addressing AI, Antiqua et Nova, signed by Pope Francis’s chief doctrinal prefect (among other curial advisers) only a few months ago, the main concern is “anthropomorphic” associations.

In an increasingly isolated world, some people have turned to AI in search of deep human relationships, simple companionship, or even emotional bonds. However, while human beings are meant to experience authentic relationships, AI can only simulate them. … It is important to clarify that, despite the use of anthropomorphic language, no AI application can genuinely experience empathy. Emotions cannot be reduced to facial expressions or phrases generated in response to prompts; they reflect the way a person, as a whole, relates to the world and to his or her own life, with the body playing a central role. True empathy requires the ability to listen, recognize another’s irreducible uniqueness, welcome their otherness, and grasp the meaning behind even their silences. … While AI can simulate empathetic responses, it cannot replicate the eminently personal and relational nature of authentic empathy. … Similarly, using AI to deceive in other contexts…, including the sphere of sexuality—is also to be considered immoral.

Lastly, ugliness is found in AI chat bots that allow users to conjure recipes for disaster and crime, such as poisons for murder, bombs for acts of terror, synthetic narcotics, shoplifting methodologies, and financial fraud.

In the study “AI and Serious Online Crime,” published last March 31, just days before the conclave in Rome (did Prevost read it before entering the Sistine Chapel?), British researchers noted:

AI proliferation is reshaping serious online criminality. While the use of AI by criminals remains at an early stage, there is widespread evidence emerging of a substantial acceleration in AI-enabled crime, particularly evident in areas such as financial crime, child sexual abuse material, phishing and romance scams. Criminal groups benefit from AI’s ability to automate and rapidly scale the volume of their activities, augment existing online crime types and exploit people’s psychological vulnerabilities.

Conclusio

Leo XIV, as an American pope, perfectly understands and appreciates the benefits of technology but is far from ignorant of the dangers AI poses to the deeply sensitive issues of our moral imagination and building authentic human relationships, a perceptivity he developed as an on-the-ground missionary and bishop in the poorest parts of Peru over two decades. The odds look good that he will be penning his first encyclical on the New Things of AI come the 135 anniversary of Rerum Novarum on May 15, 2026. It would not make sense to wait much longer than a year, with artificial intelligence breaking technological, analytical, creative, and relationship barriers at light speed—with all the good, bad, and ugly that comes with it.

Michael Severance

Michael Severance earned his B.A. in philosophy and humane letters from the University of San Francisco, where he also studied at the university's St. Ignatius Institute, a great books program. He then pursued his linguistic studies in Salamanca, Spain where he obtained his Advanced Diploma in Spanish from Spain's Ministry of Education before obtaining his M.A. in Philosophy and Modern Languages from the University of Oxford. While living in Italy, Michael has worked in various professional capacities in religious journalism, public relations, marketing, fundraising, as well as property redevelopment and management. As Istituto Acton's Operations Manager, Michael is responsible for helping to organize international conferences, increase private funding, as well as expand networking opportunities and relations among European businesses, media and religious communities, while managing the day-to-day operations of the Rome office.

The new pontiff of Rome has already set a tone for his papacy with the choice of his name:

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. 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 defense of human dignity, justice and labor.

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew will attend Leo XIV’s enthronement on Sunday, and he has remarked on the pope’s choice of name as well:

Indeed, a Pope of American origin has been elected, who took the name Leo the Fourteenth. From what I remember during my time in Rome, Leo XIII was distinguished for his social teachings. We hope that Leo XIV will also embrace the Church’s contribution to the world, not only in the social sphere but by offering answers to the existential questions that continue to concern humanity.

Pope Leo XIII wrote 88 encyclicals, including the abovementioned Rerum Novarum (May 15, 1891), inaugurating the tradition of modern Roman Catholic social teaching. In total, 14 of his encyclicals are considered “social encyclicals.”

Leo XIV’s immediate predecessor, Pope Francis, by contrast, issued only four encyclicals, just two of which are considered social. Yet those who hope for continued reconciliation between Rome and the Orthodox Church can point to Francis, who advanced ecumenical dialogue by referencing in particular Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew in both of his social encyclicals, but especially in Laudato Si’. “In the preparation of Laudato Si’,” he wrote in Fratelli Tutti, “I had a source of inspiration in my brother Bartholomew, the Orthodox Patriarch, who has spoken forcefully of our need to care for creation.”

And just this week, speaking to Eastern Catholic participants in the Jubilee of the Oriental Churches, Leo XIV affirmed, “The Church needs you. The contribution that the Christian East can offer us today is immense!” Among potential contributions, he listed Eastern liturgy and asceticism, warning, “It is vital, then, that you preserve your traditions without attenuating them, for the sake perhaps of practicality or convenience, lest they be corrupted by the mentality of consumerism and utilitarianism.”

As an Orthodox Christian who has admired Roman Catholic social teaching for years, I hope we will see with Leo XIV a combination of Leo XIII’s and Francis’s contributions … and a return of the favor.

The Orthodox Church lags behind other Christian traditions when it comes to modern social thought. That is not to say that we have none, but it is often under-theorized and under-systematized. Take for example the document For the Life of the World, produced in 2020 by a commission of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in response to the encyclical of the Council of Crete in 2016.

In contrast to Leo XIII’s defense of private property and industrial workers’ well-being, informed by his wide-reaching study of theology, philosophy, and even economics, For the Life of the World’s section on wealth and poverty sets a far more negative tone. It does not even once affirm private property, much less reflect on the importance of this fundamental human right, as acknowledged, for example, by the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 17, the principle drafters of which included the Lebanese diplomat Charles Malik, an archon of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

Despite the editors’ intention “to abstain altogether from the language and intonations of judgment or condemnation,” the section of For the Life of the World on wealth and poverty contains nine different instances of the word “condemn.” While highlighting some real—and many imaginary—challenges of our modern economies, it does not continue the more charitable and balanced tone of other sections of the document, such as in its treatments of religious liberty, democracy, and bioethics. Instead, modern economies are simply denounced, with no appreciation for the huge gains in poverty alleviation and even, in recent decades, reduction in inequality that have come from those economies. Indeed, it asserts, contrary to the facts, that poverty and inequality have grown, even appealing to Marxist memes of “wage slavery” and “late capitalism.”

In their defense, I don’t think any of the commission members are Marxists. They aren’t atheists or materialists. They don’t believe that all of history is the result of a deterministic social dialectic of class conflict. But unlike other topics, which they addressed with greater nuance and expertise, there was no economist or business specialist on the commission to steer them in a sounder direction. And unfortunately, most other disciplines do not often recognize that Marxist analysis is considered pseudoscientific by mainstream economic science today.

While I would love for my fellow Orthodox theologians to read more economics, there is a pretty solid shortcut should there ever be a second edition or sequel to For the Life of the World: Read more Roman Catholic social teaching. Rerum Novarum would be a great place to start. Engaging in just a little more ecumenism in this way would have surely corrected some of the less-helpful passages on economic topics in For the Life of the World.

To be clear: I don’t think we should just outsource economic commentary to Roman Catholics. But we can, as Pope Francis did, learn from each other and explicitly acknowledge each other’s inspiration. Yes, we have our own contributions. Francis noted our emphasis on asceticism, for example. Leo XIV would do well to continue drawing from Orthodox—and, for that matter, Western—ascetic theology in his pastoral social commentary. But we also have a lot of common ground, like natural law, and greater familiarity with Roman Catholic social thought could clarify the place of natural law in modern Orthodox social thought, whether contributions from patriarchs, councils, bishops, priests, or lay scholars.

If Leo XIV follows in his namesake’s footsteps, as he intends to, we can expect a lot of new contributions to Roman Catholic social teaching. Let’s hope that Leo XIV will also heed Pope John Paul II’s call that “the Church must breathe with her two lungs!” as Francis attempted to do. We Orthodox should do the same.

Dylan Pahman

Dylan Pahman is a research fellow at the Acton Institute, where he serves as executive editor of the Journal of Markets & Morality. He earned his MTS in historical theology from Calvin Theological Seminary. In addition to his work as an editor, Dylan has authored several peer-reviewed articles, conference papers, essays, and one book: Foundations of a Free & Virtuous Society (Acton Institute, 2017). He has also lectured on a wide variety of topics, including Orthodox Christian social thought, the history of Christian monastic enterprise, the Reformed statesman and theologian Abraham Kuyper, and academic publishing, among others.

This article was originally published in Forbes.

With the goal of providing a moral compass, theologians and leaders of the Catholic Church have often written about economic principles. Some such principles can even be drawn from Christ’s own parables. Here, though, I will focus on writings of the three most recent popes: John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis. It is a safe bet that Pope Leo XIV will continue with similar messages, incorporating the teachings of his immediate predecessors.

To put these writings in context, it is necessary to start with the framework provided by Church documents, especially the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium et spes, which is a cornerstone of Vatican II's social teaching. In its 76th paragraph, the constitution clarifies that Church teachings should not be taken as political documents: "It is very important, especially in pluralistic societies, that there be a correct notion of the relationship between the political community and the Church. It is clear that the political community and the Church are autonomous and independent of each other in their own fields. Yet both, under different titles, are devoted to the personal and social vocation of the same human beings. The more both foster sound cooperation between themselves, with the more circumspect safeguarding of freedom proper to each, the more effective will their service be exercised for the good of all.”

Gaudium et spes speaks also of the autonomy of science, and this includes economics. Autonomy of science, and especially of social science, does not mean independence. While the natural order and the spiritual order do not have all the same principles, the two orders are by no means completely separate. It is essential to start with a correct understanding of the human person and his relationships.

When it comes to political systems, few paragraphs have been quoted more on this than paragraph 42 of John Paul II’s landmark encyclical Centesimus annus: “Returning now to the initial question: can it perhaps be said that, after the failure of Communism, capitalism is the victorious social system, and that capitalism should be the goal of the countries now making efforts to rebuild their economy and society? Is this the model which ought to be proposed to the countries of the Third World which are searching for the path to true economic and civil progress? The answer is obviously complex. If by ‘capitalism' is meant an economic system which recognizes the fundamental and positive role of business, the market, private property and the resulting responsibility for the means of production, as well as free human creativity in the economic sector, then the answer is certainly in the affirmative, even though it would perhaps be more appropriate to speak of a "business economy", "market economy" or simply "free economy". But if by "capitalism" is meant a system in which freedom in the economic sector is not circumscribed within a strong juridical framework which places it at the service of human freedom in its totality, and which sees it as a particular aspect of that freedom, the core of which is ethical and religious, then the reply is certainly negative.”

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, before becoming Pope Benedict XVI, stressed that a free society can only subsist where people share basic moral convictions and high moral standards. He emphasized this at his induction into the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences of the Institute of France, adding that such convictions need not be “imposed or even arbitrarily defined by external coercion.” In his lecture he noted, “[Tocqueville’s]

Democracy in America has always made a strong impression on me.” He added that to make possible “an order of liberties in freedom lived in community, the great political thinker [Tocqueville] saw as an essential condition the fact that a basic moral conviction was alive in America, one which, nourished by Protestant Christianity, supplied the foundations for institutions and democratic mechanisms.”

Pope Benedict XVI argued that freedom, coupled with consciousness and love, comprise the essence of being. “The person, the unique and unrepeatable, is at the same time the ultimate and highest thing. In such a view of the world, the person is not just an individual; a reproduction arising from the diffusion of the idea into matter, but rather, precisely, a 'person.'"

In his encyclical Caritas in veritate, Pope Benedict affirmed the necessity of a strong charitable sector that would help foster community and mutual respect. His teachings challenged the world to see economic activity not merely as a means of wealth generation but as an integral part of human development. Inspired by this encyclical, the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace (PCJP, since renamed the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development) published a document titled “The Vocation of the Business Leader” as a kind of vade-mecum for business men and women. It reads like a handbook to be utilized by professors in formative moments and for instruction in schools and universities. The document is now in its fifth edition and includes a guide for the examination of conscience, a discernment list, with insightful questions such as: “Am I creating wealth, or am I engaging in rent-seeking behavior?” And: “Do I truly accept the competitive market economy or am I engaging in anti-competitive practices?”

Having spent most of his life in Argentina, Pope Francis witnessed the decay of his once prosperous society. As a young priest he lived through the horror and drama of an internal war between left-wing subversive groups and the overt and covert repression by military and paramilitary organizations. He lived through periods of hyperinflation. While Francis was bishop of Buenos Aires, three large multinational companies - IBM, Siemens and Skanska - were convicted for bribery. Francis thus did not have an optimistic view of the market economy. For instance, in his post-synodal apostolic exhortation Evangelii gaudium he denounced the "idolatry of money" and called for an economy that places people, especially the poor, at its center. In his encyclical Laudato si’ he links economic justice with environmental sustainability, framing both as interconnected aspects of care for creation. As I wrote in previous articles for Forbes.com, I had hopes that Pope Francis would incorporate into his teachings the economic contributions of noted Jesuits, especially the writings of Matteo Liberatore (1810-1892) and Oswald Von Nell-Breuning (1890-1991), who helped refine social doctrine on private property, but that was not the case.

Leo XIV and Peruvian Economic Success

Previous popes’ respective native countries and academic cultures influence their teachings and behavior. John Paul II spent many decades under communism, Benedict XVI lived in Germany and in Rome studying and surrounded by scholars, and Pope Francis, as I wrote above, lived during difficult periods of Argentine decay. Pope Leo XIV spent over two decades in Peru, from 1985 to 1998 and later as bishop of Chiclayo from 2014 to 2023. When he arrived, society was under attack by several left-wing terrorist organizations, notably the Shining Path and the Tupac Amaru movement.

At the time, analysts in Washington were predicting the disintegration of Peru as a nation. But after the terrorists were defeated under the presidency of Alberto Fujimori, Peru changed economic course and achieved some of the fastest rates of economic growth in the Americas. This big jump in economic freedom took place during the end of the last century. During the first decades of our century, Peru maintained a moderately free economy, as measured by the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom. Peru also showed a similar improvement in the economic freedom index of the Fraser Institute, it went from a score of 6 out of 10, to 7.42 in 2022, from #70 in the world to #43. Both Heritage and Fraser rank Peru in the top third of the world. The country would have scored higher in economic freedom if not for its very low scores in rule of law and government integrity. Peru’s relative stability in economic policy, though, contrasts with the political scene. Most Peruvian presidents during Pope Leo’s stay in Peru were indicted, impeached, or deposed, and one of them, Alan García, who served two terms, rather than facing jail, committed suicide.

When explaining why he chose his name, Leo XIV stated that he is following Leo XIII’s commitment to social issues and workers’ rights during the industrial revolution. Leo XIII’s 1891 encyclical Rerum novarum (“On New Realities”) addressed the era’s rapidly changing economic scene and the resulting impact on workers. Private property was an essential aspect of his views on social justice. Leo XIV, in explaining his choice of name, spoke about the new challenges of our century that parallel those confronted by Leo XIII, especially the rise of artificial intelligence, which is already affecting the workforce.

I, for one, expect that Leo XIV’s economic teachings will parallel those of John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, as well as some, but not all, of Pope Francis's views on economics. I also expect that Leo XIV’s views will be influenced by the decades he lived in Peru. During that period, the Peruvian economy began a remarkable run.

A key component of Peruvian economic success was the control of inflation, which in the late 1980s had soared past 7000%. Peru began to implement rigorous monetary policies in the 1990s. By the 2000s and 2010s, inflation rates were maintained in the low single digits, fostering price stability and growing investor confidence.

Fiscal discipline helped the monetary authorities. Successive governments, despite being plagued by scandals and having different ideologies, pursued prudent fiscal policies. This led to low fiscal deficits and manageable public debt levels, ensuring that Peru avoided the financial pitfalls that plagued many of its neighbors.

Between the early 2000s and 2019, Peru saw an average annual GDP growth rate of 5–6 %, one of the fastest-growing economies in the region during that period. These solid economic fundamentals allowed the country to weather the 2008 financial crisis and the 2014 commodity price shock better than other countries. Economic growth also led to a huge decline in poverty rates, which fell from over 55% in 2001 to approximately 20% by 2019. I have traveled to Peru fairly often, and one can see the impact of sustained economic development, which particularly in urban areas has contributed to a growing middle class.

Freer trade also played a major role in Peru’s economic growth. The country signed free trade agreements with U.S., China, and the EU, which opened doors for trade diversification. Mining exports have been key to Peru’s success in reducing poverty. Private sector investment in mining positioned Peru among the world’s top exporters of copper, gold, and silver, and the country also has abundant rare earth deposits. All this has made Peru a leading destination for foreign direct investment (FDI) in Latin America.

In addition to the issue of corruption that affects Peru and most developing countries, the Pope likely has a special understanding of the problem of the extra-legal economy, the large informal sector which limits access to social protection. The in-depth studies appearing in Hernando de Soto’s pathbreaking book The Other Path, written in collaboration with Enrique Ghersi and Mario Ghibellini, explained in detail the causes of this informality: a myriad of regulations and the high cost of property titling. Despite the many gains made, this problem still affects two thirds of Peru’s economy.

Before being called to the Vatican, the future Leo XIV was bishop of Chiclayo, which performed even better than most other regions of Peru. The new pope’s experience of the issues that have affected Peru over the last few decades will hopefully shed new light on the papal economics of this century.

«La scelta del meno americano dei cardinali americani credo sia stata una scelta saggia. Potrebbe avere diversi effetti benefici per la Chiesa: un antidoto alla polarizzazione degli ultimi anni, il recupero di una lettura corretta della dottrina ma senza integralismi, il ritorno a valori tradizionali senza per questo diventare tradizionalisti. E, per il mio Paese, un Papa che saprà come parlare all’America dopo il pontificato di Francesco che non capiva gli Stati Uniti». Padre Robert Sirico, fondatore e capo di un’organizzazione cattolica con sedi negli Usa e in Italia, l’Acton Institute, e pastore della comunità di Grand Rapids, in Michigan, è una voce molto ascoltata del conservatorismo cattolico americano: un religioso legato al pontificato di Giovanni Paolo II e alle libertà economiche dell’era Reagan, nella sua visione capaci di stimolare anche i valori etici dell’individuo, se applicate con saggezza, senza eccessi da capitalismo predatorio.

Ma quello che, al tavolo di un ristorante sotto le mura vaticane, ragiona sulle priorità di Leone XIV — dal risanamento delle disastrate finanze vaticane alla revisione di un’apertura verso la Cina vista come una sottomissione, fino agli interventi per frenare le fughe in avanti dei vescovi progressisti tedeschi — è anche un personaggio con una storia personale lunghissima e travagliata, quasi un romanzo vivente.

Fratello dell’attore Tony Sirico (il mafioso Paulie Gualtieri dei Sopranos), Robert, cresciuto a Brooklyn, emigrò ben presto nella West Coast. Abbandonato il cattolicesimo, nei primi anni Settanta divenne leader pentecostale di una congregazione gay a Seattle. Nel 1975 celebrò il primo matrimonio omosessuale del Colorado, poi andò in California a promuovere la Ced, la Campagna per la democrazia economica finanziata da Jane Fonda: pacifista, ambientalista, antinucleare. Qualche anno dopo la svolta: le letture delle opere di Friederick von Hayek e Milton Friedman lo portano ad abbandonare la sinistra radicale e a sposare l’economia di mercato mentre torna nell’alveo della Chiesa: ordinato sacerdote nel 1989. L’anno dopo fonda l’istituto del quale oggi, 73enne, è alla guida.

Convinto, come altri conservatori, che Francesco abbia portato la Chiesa fuori rotta?
«È stato un papato importante, ci vorrà tempo per arrivare a un giudizio meditato. Ma i progressisti hanno male interpretato i suoi gesti simbolici: le aperture e l’amore per chi in vario modo era al di fuori dei canoni della Chiesa non comportavano, di per sé, mutamenti teologici».

Sulla sessualità ci sono state aperture alle quali lei, anche per la sua storia, dovrebbe essere sensibile. Papa Prevost, viste le sue posizioni, su questo dovrebbe tornare all’antico.
«Sensibile? Certo, ma la mia conversione è avvenuta quando ho capito che nella Chiesa c’era uno spazio di comprensione e di amore, la distinzione tra peccato e peccatore. Il nuovo papa non credo condanni i gay, ma la cultura transgender per la quale nessuno può essere definito maschio o femmina: negano le differenze fisiche».

Cosa si aspetta da Leone XIV?
«In primo luogo rimettere ordine nel caos finanziario del Vaticano. Francesco ha provato ma è riuscito solo in parte, nonostante gli sforzi del cardinale Pell: un mio grande amico che è stato osteggiato dalla Curia anche con colpi bassi. Prevost ha il pragmatismo dell’americano e conosce bene la Curia per i suoi incarichi romani. Anche se è riservato e discreto, ritengo, poi, che mostrerà fermezza con la chiesa tedesca che, nel vuoto seguito alla morte di Francesco, ha preso decisioni in contrasto con la dottrina, come le donne concelebranti della messa».

Fermezza anche con Trump e JD Vance? Per Steve Bannon, Prevost è un anti-Maga. Mentre, per i progressisti, monsignor Viganò, apprezzato da Vance e poi scomunicato da Francesco, puntava a uno scisma.
«Viganò era imprudente, con un supporto trascurabile tra i conservatori Usa. E i cristiani Maga sono molto problematici, spesso integralisti. Voi giornalisti vedete i conservatori come un fronte compatto ma le posizioni sono spesso molto diverse. Nelle comunità il divieto della messa in latino è stata percepita come uno schiaffo, negare una libertà di scelta. Ma ha provocato tristezza, non spinte allo scisma».

E la questione cinese? Gli americani hanno fatto cadere il cardinale Parolin su quella?
«Non ero in Conclave, ma le cose più dure contro Parolin le ho sentite dagli italiani, non dagli americani. Detto questo, gli accordi con Pechino vanno rivisti: è l’altra prova che attende Leone XIV. Il regime ha nominato due vescovi dopo la morte di Francesco, senza consultare la Chiesa. Il cardinale Zen (93enne, perseguitato, è stato autorizzato da Pechino a venire a Roma per i funerali del Papa, ndr) deve restare a Roma a battersi contro i cedimenti della Chiesa a quella dittatura».

Originally published at Corriere Della Sera.

The Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty extends its heartfelt congratulations to His Holiness Pope Leo XIV on his election to the See of Peter.

Pope Leo XIV’s election is of particular significance to the Acton Institute, which is headquartered in Grand Rapids, Michigan, near where His Holiness spent his high school years.

The staff of Acton Institute, both at our headquarters in Grand Rapids and at Istituto Acton in Rome, offer our prayers for Pope Leo XIV as he assumes the responsibilities of the Bishop of Rome and Successor of Peter.

Photograph courtesy Associated Press