Pedro Sánchez published this Tuesday a message on social media just hours before his meeting with Pope Leo XIV in Rome in which he explicitly referenced the encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, the major programmatic text with which the Pontiff has placed the Church at the center of the global debate on artificial intelligence, human dignity, the identity of peoples, and technological power.
“On the way to Rome and the meeting with the Pope, a shared conviction: either we put progress at the service of people, or the future will be the condemnation of entire generations,” wrote the Prime Minister on his official account.
The message also comes in an especially symbolic context: Sánchez will attend the solemn Mass that Leo XIV will celebrate on June 10 at the Basilica of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, marking the first time the head of the Executive has attended a public liturgical celebration since he arrived at La Moncloa eight years ago.
Sánchez cites the encyclical with which Leo XIV seeks to shape the great anthropological debate of the 21st century
In the same message, Sánchez stated that Leo XIV’s encyclical “challenges us all” and maintained that “AI is not neutral” and that “digital power can lead us to new atrocities if it is not oriented toward the common good.”
The Spanish Prime Minister’s post comes a day after Magnifica Humanitas burst onto the international scene as one of the most ambitious documents published by the Vatican in recent years. With this encyclical, Leo XIV has placed the Church at the forefront of the discussion on the anthropological, cultural, and political risks arising from the technological revolution.
The Pope insists that the great problem of artificial intelligence is not merely technical, but profoundly human: who controls digital power, what conception of humanity lies behind the algorithms, and what kind of civilization can emerge from a technology detached from any moral reference.
Sánchez’s first public Mass as Prime Minister
Sánchez’s engagement with the discourse of Magnifica Humanitas also comes on the eve of the apostolic journey that Leo XIV will make to Spain on June 6. During that visit, Sánchez will accompany the King and Queen at the solemn Mass to be celebrated on June 10 at the Basilica of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona.
The leader’s presence at the celebration will carry strong political and media weight, as it will be the first time the Prime Minister has participated in a public Mass since arriving at La Moncloa eight years ago, after having previously described himself as “an outright atheist.”
Since 2018, Sánchez has only attended Mass on three occasions, always privately and linked to funerals or memorial services: for soprano Montserrat Caballé, former President of the European Parliament David Sassoli, and socialist leader Guillermo Fernández Vara.
It is worth recalling that the two state funerals held under his mandate—following the Covid pandemic and the DANA tragedy in Valencia—were strictly secular in nature.
Frictions between the Government and the Church
Sánchez’s appeal to the moral language of the encyclical highlights the contrast between that discourse and much of the agenda promoted by the socialist government.
Laws on abortion, euthanasia, gender ideology, and democratic memory have sparked repeated clashes between the Government and broad sectors of the Church, which consider many of these policies incompatible with the integral defense of human dignity as set forth in Catholic teaching.
Other particularly sensitive points of friction are also added, such as the controversial political handling of sexual abuse within the Church, and the project to resignify the Valley of the Fallen, an issue that, according to various media reports, will be central to the meeting with the Pontiff.
Leo XIV and the Church’s new cultural battle
With Magnifica Humanitas, Leo XIV appears determined to make the technological question one of the great intellectual and pastoral priorities of his pontificate. The Pope has repeatedly warned of the risk of a civilization governed by algorithms, economic interests, and forms of power capable of redefining human nature itself.
In this context, Sánchez’s visit to Rome will not take place solely in diplomatic terms. It will also reflect the distance between an encyclical that upholds human dignity, the limits of technological power, and the identity of peoples, and a Spanish political agenda that has repeatedly clashed with broad sectors of the Catholic world.