Pope Leo XIV claims that the expression “to disarm” is close to his heart in his newest papal encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas (110). We can see concrete and cognitive connections that Pope Leo makes between war and dialogue using the idea of disarmament. Considering the rise of AI, what are the connections between dialogue, or the words that we use when we speak with others, and a militaristic “mentality of ‘armed’ competition” (110) that drives us versus them thinking across religious, political, and economic divides?
Leo is loud in this encyclical about demilitarization. After getting “convertsplained” by JD Vance a month before the encyclical was published,Leo authoritatively states () that just war theory has become a justification for harm rather than a framework that protects. Yet, he is notably silent in the document about any issues related to Catholic stances on LGBTQIA+ issues. Could dialogue and diplomacy be the way forward, not only for leaving behind Catholic teachings on just war theory, but also about sex and gender?
CONCRETE AND COGNITIVE DISARMAMENT
In the most concrete sense, Pope Leo calls for “disarming AI” through a rigorous discernment process of the values that guide technological development. In contrast to monopolistic expansion, political dominance, and economic growth (110), Leo suggests Catholic Social Doctrine’s principles of human dignity, the common good, the universal destination of goods, subsidiarity, solidarity, and social justice (96) as an alternative framework for an AI that further peace rather than force. In paragraph 192, Pope Leo goes so far as to say that just war theory is “outdated” and that the use of violent force reflects a “relational poverty” that could be better addressed through “dialogue, diplomacy and forgiveness.”
The concrete impacts of the abuses of AI are clear in war, such as the United States’ unethical usage of the technology for conducting air strikes in Iran and kidnapping Nicolás Maduro. But beyond militarism, Leo claims there are economic and cognitive aspects of disarmament that need to be addressed, ones that need to de-weaponize a “mentality of ‘armed’ competition,” (110). Drawing attention to the ways that AI is accelerating the use of weaponized language makes the stakes of disarmament all the more apparent.
Militarized language continues to pervade United States cultural scripts, often interlaced with racialized, homophobic, and sexist assumptions bound to religion. While the “war on terror” explicitly justified blatant use of military force by the United States, even religious and cultural language not connected to armed conflict is often framed in combative terms.The so-called “war on woke” against DEI and LGBTQIA+ rights or “the culture wars” have been precipitated by algorithms designed for shock value and clicks, with eerie AI generated images often blurring political and religious commitments. In Christian circles, LGBTQIA+ rights have been framed as a “war against the Christian family.” Some conservative Catholics feel that it is their duty to go to war against anything that might disrupt the Church’s teachings that extoll the God-given nature of binary sex inseparable from binary gender and heterosexual reproduction. Church teaching, especially about binary gender and procreative, lifelong heterosexuality within the unbreakable bonds of marriage, has often framed itself as holding the sole objective truth that is under attack.
This is why it is noteworthy that Pope Leo uses militaristic language juxtaposed with language of the common good when defining proper attitudes toward truth, epistemology, and language. Leo states that “…truth is not a territory to be defended, but a good to be shared,” (25). In contrast to previous Church debates in the past few decades on relativism, which often cast feminist and LGBTQIA+ causes as counter to the objective moral order of truth, Leo shifts the language from armed competition to relational participation.
Another window regarding language opens when Leo discusses the cognitive sense of disarmament. When outlining the “five paths toward daily and public responsibility” to build a civilization of love, Leo lists “the need to disarm words” first, followed by “building peace through justice, adopting the perspectives of victims, cultivating a healthy realism, and reviving dialogue and multilateralism,” (214). Building a civilization of love requires attention to how language gets weaponized, and often accelerated, in our current technological context.
The recently released Synodal document N. 9 shows resemblances to this framework, since it is one of the first documents that listens to the experiences of gay Catholics and acknowledges the harm caused by conversion therapy. If disarming words is the first step toward building a civilization of love, then already the Synodal document is showing an openness to, if not an adoption of, the experiences of victims of anti-gay Catholic teaching.
While Pope Leo is directly addressing the “relational poverty” of hyper-militarization, there are unspoken connections that should be drawn about weaponized language toward LGBTQIA+ people. The relational poverty that overemphasizes sex and gender issues at the expense of family and community cohesion is often exacerbated by Church teaching on LGBTQIA+ issues. Whether spoken or unspoken, a path forward on LGBTQIA+ issues could very easily follow the frameworks Leo spells out in Magnifica Humanitas. Perhaps it is not only “just war,” but also Catholic teachings that reinforce a “just sex” view, that need to be abolished if we are to build a civilization of love.
DISARMING WORDS TOWARD LGBTQIA+ CATHOLICS?
What’s explicitly said by Pope Leo in Magnifica Humanitas is that Catholic Social Teaching on just war theory is outdated because of the harm that it has justified and should focus more on strengthening relational ties through dialogue and diplomacy. Could the same line of thinking about just war theory needing to change offer a pathway for Catholic teachings on sex and gender to be shifted as well? Connie Chen argues that, in the same way just war theory needs to be retired, not refined, harmful Catholic teachings about sexuality that limit the scope to reproductive, heterosexual marriage between a man and woman need to follow suit.
What’s also noticeable in this document is what Pope Leo stays silent about. What goes unmentioned in the document is anything related to LGBTQIA+ people, divorce, birth control, or gender complementarity. There is no mention of sexuality or gender outside of warning of the dangers of hypersexualized internet content, sexual exploitation of children or fraudulent accounts with manipulated images (141). Leo speaks about the need to listen to victims of sexual abuse committed within the Church (89), and lists discrimination based on gender along with other injustices like war, colonialism, exploitation, and racial discrimination (par. 79).
But is silence the same as disarmament? Though Magnifica Humanitas stays silent, when asked about the German Cardinal Reinhard Marx’s decision to bless the union of same-sex couples, Leo responded that while he disagreed with the decision, “the unity or division of the Church should not revolve around sexual matters…We tend to think that when the Church is talking about morality, that the only issue of morality is sexual, and in reality, I believe there are much greater and more important issues, such as justice, the equality, freedom of men and women, freedom of religion, that would all take priority before that particular issue.” Disarming dialogue, in Leo’s approach, seems to also offer the diplomatic strategy of shifting the focus of the conversation, a move that could perhaps, eventually, lead to a shifting of the structures of Catholic teachings.
Change is an important part of the tradition of Catholic Social Teaching, even as it maintains a commitment to core truths, and Leo offers this acknowledgment of change as another disarmament strategy in Magnifica Humanitas. He points out that tradition has always been in dialogue with and responding to changing historical contexts: “the unchanging core of revealed truths regarding the human person and society is constantly intertwined with a renewed capacity for listening to historical situations and for responding to contemporary issues.” (28). Grappling with this interplay between continuous truth manifested in changing contexts opens up avenues for rethinking just war theory, as well as LGBTQIA+ issues in the Catholic Church.
DISARMING NATIONAL SECURITY, RELIGION, AND GENDER IN THE UNITED STATES
Already, issues of war, gender, race, and nation are litmus tests for political belonging, as a look at weaponized language has shown. Bradley Onishi in an interview pointed to the direct connections between Christian nationalist politicians and their Christian fan base as one based on “patriarchy, masculinity, and homeland.” Weaponized language has often created fault lines where your stance on the war in Gaza or LGBTQIA+ rights can be a litmus test for your political affiliation in the United States and Latin America. Pope Leo has explicitly sided with victims in Palestine, but one final example brings together the ways that Pope Leo is attempting to disarm dialogue around LGBTQIA+ issues.
Leo cites concepts that were used to admonish LGBTQIA+ people in the past, such as Pope Francis’s technocratic paradigm (MH par. 92) and the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith’s concept of moral, social, existential, and ontological dignity (MH par. 52). But instead of pointing to the hubris or selfishness of queer and trans people for going against nature, Leo warns about people approaching themselves as projects that are only desirable through transcending limits rather than recognizing their inherent worth. “If the human being is treated as something to be perfected or surpassed, it becomes easier to accept that some lives are less useful, less desirable, less worthy,” (117). This becomes especially relevant when thinking through the justification of violence, whether in times of national warfare, cultural warfare, or the blurry intersection of both that links homophobia, transphobia, racism, and militarized force.
In an age when so-called “TheoBros,” or recent converts that make lifestyle social media content, are influencing young men to convert to Catholicism, the connection between national security, religion, and gender in the United States seems all the more intertwined. It is a strange paradox when Pete Hegseth is extolling testosterone usage for soldiers to fit an unnatural caricature of hyper-masculinity while claiming we are leaving “wokeness and weakness” behind. Looksmaxxers like Clavicular who advocate taking a hammer to one’s face to find a sense of worth are drawn to the rules-based, order, and authority of Catholicism.
While the rise in Catholicism might not be as big as the media coverage implies, the uptick of young men Catholic converts influenced by the so-called “manosphere” seem drawn to body optimization synthesized with an interpretation of the Catholic tradition that is based on power, authority, and rigid unchanging rules.
Pope Leo’s disarmament strategies involve moving away from polarizing language, choosing cooperation instead of competition, and embracing human vulnerability rather than trying to overcome it. Change is required for responding to the “new things” that arise with technological advancement, and anything that threatens the inherent dignity of human beings must be subject to change. If justice and peace are to be built through dialogue, then certainly disarming words, acknowledging harm, and listening to victims is a first step in the right direction for both demilitarization and queer and trans liberation.
