Following Pope Francis's outreach with popular movements, his successor spoke about the new poverty of the digital age. The creativity generated by artificial intelligence and robotics has brought "great progress in many areas,” but “it has failed to reverse the tragic exclusion of millions of people." He warned against the "void" left by weakened unions, ineffective laws, and enfeebled international organisations.  People are “more vulnerable than before”.

Vatican City (AsiaNews) – He said it at the start of his pontificate, when he surprisingly picked Leo as his name. For Robert Francis Prevost, the Church needs a new 'Rerum Novarum' for the 21st century. Christian thinking must truly accept the impact of the changes brought to social life by the digital revolution, just as Leo XIII did in 1891 with his encyclical on the rights and duties of capital and labour, which became the starting point of the social doctrine of the Church.

If this was the general paradigm, Pope Leo XIV began to concretely address this challenge on Thursday at the World Meeting of Popular Movements. In his long and detailed speech, he focused on the relationship between new technologies and those who, even now, end up on the margins. He did so, not coincidentally, in front of people from the peripheries whom Pope Francis sought out as his privileged interlocutors, but also saw as a laboratory for a new humanity.

“Echoing Francis’s requests,” the pontiff emphatically said: “Today I say: land, housing, and work are sacred rights, worth fighting for, and I want you to hear me say, ‘I’m in!’ ‘I’m with you!’” Yet the social magisterium cannot simply repeat things. “The title Rerum Novarum means ‘new things,’” he explained citing the title of Leo XIII’s historic encyclical.

“There are certainly ‘new things’ in the world, but when we say this, we generally adopt a ‘view from the centre’ and refer to things like artificial intelligence or robotics. However, today I would like to look at the ‘new things’ with you, starting from the periphery.”

“Is demanding land, housing, and work for the excluded a ‘new thing’?” Leo XIV asked. “Seen from the centres of global power, certainly not; those with financial security and a comfortable home may consider these demands somewhat passé. The truly ‘new’ things seem to be driverless vehicles, trendy objects or clothing, high-end mobile phones, cryptocurrencies, and other such things.

“From the peripheries, however, things look different; the banner you wave (Land, Home, Work) is so timely that it deserves an entire chapter in Christian social thinking on the excluded in today's world.”

The question today is to ensure “that 'new things' are managed appropriately. This issue should not remain in the hands of political, scientific, or academic elites, but should instead concern all of us.”
Indeed, “The creativity that God has endowed human beings, and which has generated great progress in many areas, has not yet been able to effectively address the challenges of poverty and, therefore, has failed to reverse the tragic exclusion of millions of people who remain on the margins. This is a central point in the debate about 'new things’.”

This is precisely the prophecy offered by the Popular Movements. “As a bishop in Peru, I am happy to have experienced a Church that accompanies people in their pain, their joys, their struggles, and their hopes. This is an antidote to a growing structural indifference that fails to take seriously the plight of peoples who are dispossessed, robbed, plundered, and forced into poverty.

“We often feel powerless in the face of all this, yet we must begin to counter it,” opposing what “I have called the 'globalisation of powerlessness’ with a 'culture of reconciliation and commitment’. Popular movements fill this void created by the lack of love with the great miracle of solidarity, founded on care for others and on reconciliation.”

There is more. Leo XIV urges the faithful to look more deeply at technological development. He looks at its effects on the main areas of social life, namely healthcare, education, employment, transportation, urbanisation, communications, security, and defence.

Many aspects are positive, but their impact is not the same for everyone: some social groups end up as “collateral damage”.

For the pontiff, the climate crisis hits the poor particularly hard. But there are also more subtle “damages”, such as their "anxieties and hopes" generated by “the models of life that are constantly promoted today" or the social ills like the raging online gambling addiction.

Speaking about the "innovations" of the pharmaceutical industry, Leo noted that they are not all harbingers of hope, citing the “addiction to painkillers, whose sale obviously increases the profits of the manufacturing companies themselves”. There is also the scourge of fentanyl, the synthetic drug that is "the second-leading cause of death among the poor in the United States."

“It is not just a crime committed by drug traffickers," the pope said, “but it is a reality that has to do with the production of drugs and their profit, without an overall ethic.”

Turning to the technological devices people hold in their hands, Leo mentioned some of the elements used in their manufacturing, such as coltan, dripping of blood and tainted by child labour in war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo, and lithium. “Some businessmen and politicians boast of promoting coups d'état and other forms of political destabilisation" to get their hands on them.

Security is another issue. “"States have the right and duty to protect their borders, but this should be balanced with the moral obligation to provide refuge. With the abuse of vulnerable migrants, we are not witnessing the legitimate exercise of national sovereignty, but rather serious crimes committed or tolerated by the state. Increasingly inhumane measures – even politically celebrated – are being adopted to treat these 'undesirables' as if they were garbage and not human beings.”

As in the days of Rerum Novarum, even in the digital age, the poor for Leo XIV have become more vulnerable and less protected. He warns against the sense of emptiness that surrounds traditional social structures.

“The trade unions typical of the 20th century now represent an increasingly small percentage of the workforce, and social security systems are in crisis in many countries,”" he said.

“Neither trade unions nor employers' associations, nor states nor international organisations seem capable of addressing these problems. But a state without justice is not a state, [Saint] Augustine reminds us. Justice requires that the institutions of every state serve every social class and all residents, harmonising their diverse needs and interests.”

To illustrate this, Leo cited the Gospel parable of the unclean spirit who is driven away but, upon returning, finds his old home clean and in order, only to cause greater strife (see Mt 12:43-45).

“The social institutions of the past were not perfect,” the pontiff explained, “but by sweeping away much of them and adorning what remains with ineffective laws and unenforced treaties, the system makes human beings more vulnerable than before.”

For this reason, he gives the Popular Movements and, with them, each of us, a certain task. “Together with people of good will, Christians, believers, and governments, we are urgently called to fill that void, initiating processes of justice and solidarity that spread throughout society.”

“Like my predecessor Francis, I believe that the right paths begin from the bottom up and from the periphery to the centre,” Pope Leo said.

“Your many and creative initiatives can be transformed into new public policies and social rights. Yours is a legitimate and necessary quest. Who knows if the seeds of love that you sow, as small as mustard seeds, can grow into a more humane world for all and help better manage ‘new things’.”

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