‘A Social Contract for the Digital World’ – Text of Cardinal McElroy’s Sept. 26 talk at St. Anselm’s Abbey School
At the end of the conclave that elected Pope Leo, in keeping with tradition, all of the cardinal-electors greeted the new Pope individually, offered their promises of obedience and support and then conveyed a more personal greeting. As I did so, I said to Pope Leo, “You picked a great name.” For every Pope makes a statement in the name he chooses, and I knew that in picking the name Leo, the new pontiff was signaling his desire to embrace the long and broad history of Catholic social doctrine that traces its modern origins to Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum Novarum, which was promulgated in 1891.
It is hard to comprehend the immediate and historical breadth of Rerum Novarum, which means new things. The encyclical directly took up the vast consequences that the industrialization of the West had produced for social and family life, for wealth and income levels, for the dignity of workers and for human dignity in all of its dimensions. Just as importantly, it proclaimed in clear terms the Church’s obligation to bring the implications of the Gospel and Catholic teaching in its fullness to bear upon the tumultuous changes that accompanied the shift from an agrarian society to a more urbanized culture. Finally, Rerum Novarum served as a mandate to every succeeding age in the Church to examine the “new things” emerging in society, politics, culture and economic realities to place them also under examination in the light of the Gospel and Catholic tradition.
It is in following this mandate that Pope Leo XIV has issued Magnifica Humanitas precisely because we live in the midst of a technological revolution that may ultimately dwarf the transformations of industrialization. Magnifica states “we must ask God for the wisdom to interpret the great trends of our time, particularly technological advances. In recent years it has become increasingly evident how rapidly and profoundly digitalization, artificial intelligence, and robotics are transforming our world.”