J. R. R. Toikien (l) and Pope Leo (r). Credit: Composite photo/ Wikimedia Commons.

Of all the startling things one might find in a papal encyclical, a quote from J. R. R. Tolkien might take the cake. It’s not the first time a novel has made an appearance in such a format, as The Brothers Karamazov showed up in Pope Francis’ “Dilexit Nos,” but who would ever have thought The Lord of the Rings would appear in a magisterial document?

But there it is—a quote from Gandalf right smack in the middle of the text:

It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till.

As for the horrifically mixed metaphor, blame Tolkien, not the pope. Note also that this is the second time in a week that a prominent church figure has quoted the guy; in an essay for America on May 19 on the encyclical and artificial intelligence, Bishop Daniel E. Flores dropped a surprising reference: 

The narrative around objective data is useful for marketing purposes, but behind the program, there is a remote editor of criteria: It could be an elf, or it could be an orc, but the human reality remains. We must choose criteria wisely, and we must know when to leave the program and simply think and pray about our decisions.

And before you think that Tolkien’s inclusion in the encyclical means “Magnifica Humanitas” is simply a screed against modern technology or a distributist manifesto, keep in mind that the quote is used in the context of exhorting each of us to do some small part to build a civilization of love and not to give in to fatalism or retreat to safe enclaves. Tolkien doesn’t come up otherwise, though you can be sure he would have cast a leery eye at artificial intelligence.

In fact, while “Magnifica Humanitas” is sharply critical of the way technological advancements like A.I. have been cultivated and are being implemented, this is no Pollyannish or Luddite bit of writing. It recognizes the value (and inevitability) of the “fourth industrial revolution,” but it also has much to say about its dangers, particularly for the human dignity that every papal document dealing with Catholic social teaching since “Rerum Novarum” in 1891 has made a primary focus.

Note, however, that the Tolkien reference is not the only literary trope in the encyclical. Even if one glosses over more oblique references like those to Leonardo Boff (whose 1997 book Cry of the Earth, Cry of the Poor found its way into “Laudato Si’” and is referenced here in that context), there are a number of other striking images drawn from literature both sacred and secular. And among the saints, martyrs and prophets the encyclical references, many too made their greatest impact on humanity as much through their inspired writings and orations as through their holy courage, from Martin Luther King Jr. to Dorothy Day to Nelson Mandela and more.

Some of “Magnifica Humanitas” can come off as a little too far into the weeds, to be frank. Papal advice on when to give a kid a cellphone probably doesn’t belong in an encyclical. Nor will all of this material age well, attempting as it does to capture a particular moment in a revolution that is metastasizing every day. But there is also much to be inspired by—and much to be challenged by—in its central arguments, particularly in the images Pope Leo uses to make them.

Paragraph 90 gives us the most important question: “We are called to reflect on the great ‘construction sites’ of our era and ask: What are we building?” Throughout “Magnifica Humanitas,” the two images he uses to represent the choice before us are of the Tower of Babel from Genesis and Nehemiah’s slow reconstruction of Jerusalem from the Book of Nehemiah: The first story tells of the thoughtless arrogance taken on by a humanity that sees its own glorification as the goal of existence; the second tells of the humble and painstaking act of constructing something holy, brick by brick. You can guess which one our Augustinian pope prefers.

I wondered something else about these images and from whence they came. A.I. could never make them. It could copy them, it could riff on and expand them; it could even set them to meter and rhyme. But what would happen if you asked A.I. to create a story about the work of human hands and its potential to create chaos or to create community? Would it give you anything with the punch of the Tower of Babel, with the metaphorical strength of the story of Nehemiah? And would you expect those stories still to be around—to be common intellectual currency, in fact—three millennia from now?

The Vatican, of course, uses A.I. itself—those quick translations of papal homilies and Masses aren’t being worked on by medieval scribes over pots of ink and parchment, after all—leading to more than a few jokes about the temptation to, well, use A.I. in a document about A.I. But no one is reading “Magnifica Humanitas” and thinking that this rather long document was written by large language models or any kind of machine. It is a human work, chock-full of the fruits of our shared labor, literary and intellectual and spiritual.

That reality itself is a powerful meta-commentary on the primary message of “Magnifica Humanitas.” As a voice once told St. Augustine, we are told: Tolle, lege. Take and read.

What are we building? What are the great construction sites of our era? A tower to the heavens, the A.I. enthusiasts tell us, whether you want it or not. It can’t be stopped. Perhaps not, “Magnifica Humanitas” concedes, but it certainly doesn’t have to be a folly that destroys human solidarity forever. It could be a new work of a magnificent humanity, holy and built on the ideas and images and labors of a humanity that seeks more than simply efficiency or profit.

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Our poetry selection for this week is the winner of this year’s Foley Poetry Prize, “They tell us border nets, 10,000 feet high,” by Emily Davis-Fletcher. Readers can view all of America’s published poems here.

Other recent Catholic Book Club columns:

Happy reading!

James T. Keane

James T. Keane is a Senior Editor at America.