On May 30,     Maria Tadeo,  Editor-in-Chief of EURO News, writing her weekly newsletter Off the Record, comments on Pope Leo.

The American Pope, writes Tadeo, has published his first encyclical this week, Magnifica Humanitas, on safeguarding the human person in the age of artificial intelligence.

Encyclicals are important because, according to Tadeo, beyond the spiritual guidance they offer to more than one billion Catholics, they also capture the wider zeitgeist. Encyclicals have addressed some of the most fundamental debates of the 20th century, from abortion to divorce, to the rise of capitalism and communism. 

And with Magnifica Humanitas — Latin for "magnificent humanity" — Pope Leo is seeking to inject a sense of conscience into technology, positioning the Catholic Church as a counterweight to the power of Silicon Valley. 

A key passage in the encyclical, as her message claims, goes straight to that point:

"In the abstract, technology in and of itself is not a solution to humanity's problems, just as it is not inherently evil. In practice, however, technology is never neutral, because it takes on the characteristics of those who devise, finance, regulate and use it."