Pope Leo XIV’s real concern, to build up the City of God

 

Everyone has missed Pope Leo’s true enemy, and it’s not AI

 

Everyone has missed Pope Leo’s true enemy, and it’s not AI

 

Opinion by Elise Morrison

 

Pope Leo XIV’s much-anticipated first encyclical on safeguarding the human person in the time of AI was released last month to much fanfare and discussion. A renewal of the Rerum Novarum of Pope Leo XIII (1891), this encyclical sought to speak of the “res novae (new issues) of our time” – such as AI.

 

As he writes: “Humanity, created by God in all its grandeur, is today facing a pivotal choice: either to construct a new Tower of Babel or to build the city in which God and humanity dwell together.”

 

Commentators thus far seemed to have focused on what he has to say about what he calls the “Babel syndrome”, yet have missed something significant: most of the encyclical is dedicated to the more fundamental Christian question of how we might think about building the City of God here on earth, how we can work together to “foster a peaceful, just and dignified life in community within today’s ‘cities’”.

 

If you’re not Catholic, you might be asking: “Well, what does it matter what the Pope has to say?”

 

Nearly 20 years after the financial crisis of 2008, amid the climate crisis and the mental health crisis, with wars in Ukraine and Iran, the turmoil of Donald Trump’s second term, and, as the encyclical is concerned with, the rise of an artificial intelligence which no longer serves us, but we serve it, it is clear that the modern world isn’t working for us.

 

The Pope’s encyclical has a message that is more fundamental than

a critique of AI - Remo Casilli/Reuters

 

The real problem is that the current political offerings available to us are fundamentally untethered from what Catholic social teaching might call “the Good” or “the Real”, and instead remain beholden to the technocratic doctrines that have prevailed for much of the post-Cold War period.

 

Today’s politics have prioritised efficiency and profit over the values of peace, justice, and fraternity. Pope Leo’s encyclical, by contrast, draws on the Church’s “ancient wisdom” to generate fresh ways of approaching social, political and economic questions.

 

The proliferation of AI is just one symptom of this broken society. If we are unable to connect our use of technology to virtues which serve us, we will remain servants to it.

And so the Pope warns us: “When it [technology] becomes the standard by which everything is judged, it begins to dictate what matters and what can be discarded, reducing creation to an object of exploitation and human beings to mere cogs in a system driven toward ever greater efficiency.”

 

But it’s not difficult to look around and see how life more generally has become transactional in the past 50 years.

 

‘Unless you eat my Body and drink my Blood’

 

 

 

‘Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life;

and I will raise him up at the last day’.

 

John 6:54

 

 

Pope: 'Keep beautiful witness of Corpus Christi processions alive'

 

Pope: 'Keep beautiful witness of Corpus Christi processions alive'

 

During his Wednesday General Audience, Pope Leo XIV recalled that Thursday marks the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, encouraging the faithful to keep alive the public witness of faith made visible in Corpus Christi processions around the world.

 

He also offered heartfelt words of prayer and accompaniment to priests and religious in the Middle East.

 

Jun 03, 2026

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By Deborah Castellano Lubov

"An expression of popular Eucharistic devotion is found in the processions with the Blessed Sacrament that take place in the streets of many towns and countries; in this regard, I encourage you to keep alive this beautiful manifestation of public witness to the faith."

 

Pope Leo XIV expressed this sentiment during his Wednesday General Audience, recalling that this week the Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ.

 

The Pope encouraged the faithful to participate in this tradition, recalling that "In the Eucharist we contemplate Jesus, bread broken and given for each one of us."

 

In his greetings to the faithful, the Pope also offered special words of closeness to priests and religious serving in the Middle East.

"I accompany with my prayer and my blessing your ministry and the hopes of your respective countries."

 

The Holy Father also greeted the Daughters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the members of the Montfortian Family, and the Sisters of Our Lady of the Cenacle, encouraging them "to be a sign of hope for all those who thirst for God, for His truth, and for His peace."--Vatican News

 

Today (7^th June, 2026) is the feast of  Corpus Christi

 

Neanderthals could speak

 

“As well as archaeological artefacts, researchers also point to similarities

in their vocal anatomy with modern humans and their known cognitive abilities. Neanderthals had larger brains, on average, than modern humans and while

this doesn’t mean they were necessarily smarter, it does suggest they were

a highly intelligent species - just like us”.

 

Will Newton

This comes as no surprise whatsoever to me (Damien Mackey).

See e.g. my articles:

 

Neanderthals need to be re-written

 

(5) Neanderthals need to be rewritten

 

Messing with the Neanderthals

 

(5) Messing with the Neanderthals

 

See also Dr. Jack Cuozzo’s book:

 

And, again:

 

New Shocking Discovery About Neanderthals Changes EVERYTHING!

 

Recent discoveries have revealed that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens in the mid-Middle Paleolithic Levant not only coexisted but actively interacted, sharing technology, lifestyles, and burial customs. These interactions fostered cultural exchange, social complexity, and behavioral innovations, such as formal burial practices and the symbolic use of ochre for decoration. The findings suggest that human connections, rather than isolation, were key drivers of technological and cultural advancements, highlighting the Levant as a crucial crossroads in early human history.

 

We read at:

They interbred – but could humans and neanderthals actually talk to each other? | Discover Wildlife

 

They interbred – but could humans and neanderthals actually talk to each other?

 

Our ancestors lived alongside Neanderthals for nearly 200,000 years [sic], often interbreeding with them. But could they understand one another?

….

Will Newton

 

Published: May 25, 2026 at 2:46 am

---

 

We might be the only species of human alive today, but just a few hundred thousand years ago [sic] there were a handful of different species living across the world.

 

The Neanderthals were one of these species, and … they’re our closest cousins.

 

….

 

How closely related are we to Neanderthals?

 

It was long thought that we (Homo sapiens) evolved from Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) and that these stocky ‘almost-humans’ were a transitional phase between chimpanzees and modern humans. This ‘March of Progress’-style image is often how our evolutionary history is depicted, but it couldn’t be further from the truth.

 

• "They wore clothes, wielded fire, and created art; they may have even been smarter than us..." Just who were our closest cousins?
• Is the human race truly one species or the lovechild of various prehistoric hook-ups? Just how interbred are we?

 

Instead, modern humans and Neanderthals are sister species that evolved from the same common ancestor [sic], diverging from one another roughly half-a-million years ago. As a species, Neanderthals emerged earlier than modern humans, roughly 400,000 years ago compared to 300,000 years ago, but it wasn’t until 130,000 years ago that ‘classic Neanderthals’ really appeared.

….

Regardless of who this common ancestor was, genetic studies show that Neanderthals are our closest relatives and share up to 99.7% of our DNA. These similarities run so deep that some suggest Neanderthals may actually represent a subspecies of Homo sapiens and should be renamed Homo sapiens neanderthalensis.

 

Could Neanderthals speak?

 

The linguistic ability of Neanderthals has long been debated. From their discovery in the mid 19th century until quite recently, they were often portrayed as dim-witted ‘cavemen’, their communicative abilities thought to be limited to grunts and simple gestures.

….

 

It’s clear from the wealth of archaeological artefacts left by Neanderthals alone that this was simply not the case. The discovery of clothes, jewellery, weapons, and sophisticated homes crafted by Neanderthals paint a picture of people who could not only communicate, but collaborate and even create art.

 

As well as archaeological artefacts, researchers also point to similarities in their vocal anatomy with modern humans and their known cognitive abilities. Neanderthals had larger brains, on average, than modern humans and while this doesn’t mean they were necessarily smarter, it does suggest they were a highly intelligent species - just like us.

 

In order to find out just how well Neanderthals could speak, a team of researchers from the University of Iowa examined their genetic code for genomic regions known as ‘human ancestor quickly evolving regions’, or HAQERS. These aren’t genes, rather sequences that affect how and when certain genes are expressed, and they’ve been shown to have a large effect on human language development.

 

What these researchers found as part of a study published in April, 2026, surprised them. Neanderthals not only had HAQERS, but they were even more prominent than those found in humans today ….

 

If that was the case, and Neanderthals were capable of language, surely they could have found ways to communicate with the humans they bumped into - right?

 

Could humans and Neanderthals communicate?

 

It’s clear, based on the genetic evidence, that humans and Neanderthals regularly ‘bumped’ into one another - in more ways than one…

 

In 2010, researchers successfully sequenced the Neanderthal genome and discovered that modern humans of non-African descent carry roughly 2% Neanderthal DNA in their genomes. Some populations carry even more: the proportion in East Asian populations can be as high as 4%!

 

This genetic evidence proves that humans and Neanderthals interbred quite regularly, and suggests some may have even lived together in mixed groups. The individuals living in these mixed groups, nurturing and raising hybrid offspring, must have been able to communicate to some degree. ….

 

One Nation’s Barnaby Joyce fires up anti-abortion rally

 

 

 

“You must keep that fire burning for those people who can’t

stand up for themselves and I call them people – they’re not foetuses”.

Barnaby Joyce

  

 

Farid Farid and Robyn Wuth
Jun 03, 2026, updated Jun 03, 2026

 

Source: AAP

 

Riding high on One Nation’s popularity in the polls, backbench MP Barnaby Joyce has fronted an anti-abortion rally with a fiery warning to other politicians.

 

Joyce said his pro-life stance was one of conviction rather than of political opportunism, drawing massive cheers from a crowd of about 2000 people outside the NSW parliament on a chilly Sydney evening.

“Politically, does this make you popular? No, you’d probably lose half your votes every time you do it. But you know why you do it because that’s the right thing to do,” he said.

 

Joyce, who left the Nationals in late 2025 as the far-right One Nation’s polling rise gathered pace, argued that galvanising support around the pro-life cause could change the political landscape.

 

One Nation has leapfrogged Labor to become the political party with the highest primary vote, according to a Redbridge poll this week.

 

“I don’t know much about a lot, but I know a lot about politics and the one thing politicians fear is losing their job. They’re very mindful of that,” Joyce said.

“You must keep that fire burning for those people who can’t stand up for themselves and I call them people – they’re not foetuses.”

 

One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce vowed to ‘keep the fire burning’ for the

anti-abortion cause. Photo: AAP

 

Tuesday’s demonstration was organised by anti-abortion campaigner Joanna Howe in support of a bill in NSW parliament proposed by Libertarian MP John Ruddick to criminalise gender selective abortions.