In paragraph 114 of Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical Magnifica Humanitas (2026), the Pope includes an aside about the value of interpersonal practices which might restore the humane to our lives even as we stand like ants before the evitable tsunami of new digital technologies.
I recently reviewed this encyclical in two parts in the June 27, 2026 and July 11, 2026 issues of News Weekly. I found that the Pope suggests that we agree to “disarm” the new technology and he does this by offering “not so much a definitive teaching, but some pithy metaphysical, social and moral discussion starters relating to the possibility that various ‘technologies’ unleased by the silicon developers risk both dehumanisation and even the annihilation of all life on Earth”.
Pope Leo writes: “The quality of a civilisation is measured not by the power of its means, but by the care it is able to offer, by its ability to recognise the other as a face not merely as a function.” (MH n. 114)
He then lists some simple interpersonal actions which, when we think about it, have more “weight” when delivered in the flesh than if delivered by a streaming service or a robotic “carer”. His examples here are: “Reading stories to a child, offering company to an elderly person and arranging a home so that it is welcoming are simple gestures often rooted in family life.”
The American philosopher of science and theologian Michael Hanby has been keenly attentive to the metaphysical and cultural implications of AI technology for nearly a decade and has analysed the shape of post-modernity for longer still.
In the face of the new technological revolution, Hanby proposes the metaphor not of “disarmament” but of “resistance”. His first stage of resistance is to think clearly, creatively and contemplatively about the true nature of this technology.
In a thought-provoking article on the Word on Fire website, Hanby enlists some of the insights of 20th-century thinkers, the German-Jewish Hans Jonas (1903-1993) and the Northern Irish Christian writer and apologist C.S. Lewis (1898-1964) in his 1943 Abolition of Manlectures.
Hanby insists that: “AI cannot apprehend the transcendent or make a principled judgment about the nature and meaning of things. It cannot think about, much less understand, such things. Not only is it unable even to pose the question of truth as more than a question of function or fact, but in fact it abolishes it.”
Hanby reminds us that one of the reasons that we are paralysed by the shiny, zippy “smartness” of AI is that we have inherited from nominalists such as Francis Bacon an inadequate understanding of “intelligence.”
Hanby writes in the article cited above: “Francis Bacon in the 17th century had equated knowledge with power and truth with utility, with our success in analysing nature into its component parts and identifying, predicting, or manipulating natural things and processes.”
Understanding this metaphysical distinction, Hanby then recommends that we preserve and rebuild places and practices which provide sanctuary and resistance to the isolating and dehumanising potential of A.I. Hanby unpacks this second stage of resistance. Hanby argues that technology easily becomes not just a tool which we employ, but an ambience that both forms and blinds us.
Michael Hanby writes in another important article, “The Artificial God”, that AI – like other post-modern technologies – “magnifies human power beyond a human scale, extending our power to act beyond our power to see, think, or judge”. Many in the AI world admit that they do not really know where it is going or why.
Hanby writes: “It is only after we have acquired or ensnared ourselves in some new form of technological power that we discover what it is for, by which point we can only partially glimpse what it means.”
He, like Pope Leo, identifies our need to establish practices which engage attention, embodiment, and enfleshed relationality in such a way that it breaks the control and “inversion” of AI.
He presents these as “areas” which provide “zones of resistance where the Machine cannot form the soul”.
In Hanby’s compelling review of the book Against the Machine by the Orthodox Christian convert, “radical reactionary,” writer and self-described “recovering environmentalist” Paul Kingsnorth, Hanby begins to draw up a blueprint for such resistance. Drawing from Kingsnorth’s idea of the four essential P’s – “people, place, prayer and (the) past” – and agreeing that we are in a time of “spiritual crisis”, Hanby writes more fulsomely:
“If the spiritual crisis of our age is an increasingly spiritless world, then the ‘order’ one must seek is an order that treasures and cultivates the things of the spirit: memory; the ability to hold past, present, and future in a unity and thus to have and inhabit a history; and gratitude, the profound recognition that we do not cause our own existence and that a history is therefore not an obstacle to be surpassed but a gift and an unrepayable debt. All of these things are ingredients in the act of love and in the supreme act of love that is prayer.”
AI cannot think for us, love for us or pray in our place. As Pope Leo XIV suggests, sometimes the zones of resistance will seem to lie in the small and the ordinary human actions and interactions.
As Hanby suggests, the “cracks” in the totalising world of AI can come in times and places in which the “light” of creation breaks through and in which our bodily presence and gestures recall older practices. Here we can understand why there is a renewed desire by people, many who are not Christians to tend a garden, knit a jumper, walk a pilgrimage or light a candle in prayer.
At the Thomas More Centre, we have found that people of different ages appreciate it when our live events offer something more than technological gadgetry and the more we lean into the embodied and interpersonal.
Over the past 12 months, we have seen the positive reception of our “shatter zones” of Christian humanism – the live Byzantine Vespers (TMC Summer Conference 2026), roundtable discussions, book launches, live debates (TMC Brisbane debates) and small group learning (YPAT 2026). When we at TMC use technology, it is to inform, promote, communicate and open up opportunities for the local, the live and the personal.
TMC’s Erik Varden Interview
One very satisfying and engaging example of this can be seen in Mark Makowiecki’s deeply personable interview with Bishop Erik Varden of Trondheim, Norway.
Mark is a gifted scripture scholar and teacher who has a wonderful touch in his interviews. He researches his subject in fine detail, formulates culturally and theologically astute questions, and then steps back to allow his interview subject to shine.
Bishop Erik Varden OSCO is a multilingual scholar, author, Trappist monk and previously Abbot of Mount St Bernard Abbey in England. He is widely considered one of the most significant new leaders and teachers across the Christian world.
His books have quickly become classics in their monastic, aesthetic and spiritual depth and originality. This year, much to his own surprise, Bishop Varden was invited to give the 2026 Lenten Retreat to Pope Leo XIV and the Roman Curia. Bishop Varden also has a lovely and enriching website, Coram Fratribus, which he runs almost single-handedly and we are honoured to have him mention the TMC interview here.
In this interview with TMC from his home in Trondheim, Bishop Varden speaks of being “A Catholic Monastic in a Post-Secular Age”.
He generously speaks about the importance of books and reading, of his love of languages, some of his mystical insights and of the state of the world today. It is a real treasure of an encounter.
YPAT 2026 – Brisbane
Once again it was a real delight to be able to join the participants, organisers and speakers at this year’s Young Political Advocacy Training (YPAT) residential program. This year we were welcomed again by the hospitable team at the Women’s College at the University of Queensland. While the group was a more compact and local group this year, the advantage was that speakers and participants were able to have more in-depth conversations.
Thanks to the organising team – Luke, Martin and Nicole – who assembled a really fine array of presenters on such important topics as: Catholic Social Teaching, the ideological influence on institutions, the cooperation in evil in professional medical settings, the role of conscience, the role of the media in our digital age, practical responses to the moral and social challenges of the “culture of life”, life in political parties and many other issues. There were very hands-on experiences including a visit to Parliament House and a social evening with supporters and political figures. More on this in the weeks ahead.
Vale Hon. Joseph G Santamaria KC
It is with great sadness and with immense gratitude that we received news of the death of the Honourable Joseph Gerard Santamaria KC just before the publication of this edition.
Joseph Santamaria was a retired Appeal Court Judge and an exceptional intellect and scholar. He was born on July 14, 1948 and died at 78 on July 23, 2026.
Joseph had been unwell for some time but with a quiet and self-effacing generosity that was so notable in him, he agreed to be an especially important patron for the revival of the Thomas More Centre.
In 2006, Joseph wrote a very thoughtful reflection on the elements that formed his extraordinary father in News Weekly. He wrote of B.A. Santamaria’s outlook on “social” Catholicism and his lifelong social acumen.
Joseph wrote in the essay of his father’s discovery of the Catholic Worker movement:
“Before doing each of those things, he had received an intellectual formation and orientation. For the rest of his life, that formation and orientation developed dialectically with his own maturity and study.”
It is deeply characteristic that “Judge Santamaria” was called by those who were not his familiars, and would take so much interest in the quality of education both in its formal and its experiential modes.
Joseph himself was deeply committed to the reasonableness of faith and he was dedicated to the formation of not only those “in the law” but also of young people more generally. His support of the Thomas More Centre extended over many decades, as did his often hidden support of other cultural and educational efforts – particularly those that were new or struggling.
Joseph formed many close friends from his time at Oxford University, and he introduced and often hosted these important people in his home so that they were able to speak at the Thomas More Centre Summer Schools in the 1990s and 2000s.
We were especially honoured to have Joseph’s eldest son, Fr Jerome Santamaria, as a keynote speaker at this year’s TMC Summer Conference, “Christianity and the Common Good”.
The Melbourne Catholic Lawyers have today marked his death with these words:
“Beginning in 1977, he taught for many years at Melbourne Law School, where he introduced many of his students to the natural law tradition, particularly as articulated by the renowned legal philosopher John Finnis, under whom Joseph had studied at Oxford. Following his retirement from the bench, he continued to contribute as a Senior Fellow at Melbourne Law School, generously sharing his knowledge, wisdom and love of the law with future generations of lawyers.”
We will provide a fuller tribute on the Honourable Joseph Santamaria in next week’s TMC newsletter.
Please pray for the repose of his soul and for consolation and grace for his family who were with him in his final hours.
Requiescat in Pace, Joseph Santamaria.
Anna Krohn
Executive Director
Thomas More Centre
