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Cardinal Brislin: Human progress must serve dignity and common good
Opening the third session of the Extraordinary Consistory, Cardinal Stephen Brislin reflects on Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical Magnifica humanitas, saying the Church is called to engage the struggles of history with a synodal approach rooted in faith, charity, and hope.
Vatican News
Cardinal Stephen Brislin, Archbishop of Johannesburg, in South Africa, opened the third session of the Extraordinary Consistory by inviting the Cardinals to reflect on how humanity is “building” its future in an age marked by technological power.
Speaking on the theme “Building for the common good: the building sites of our time,” Cardinal Brislin focused on the relationship between the introduction and conclusion of Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical Magnifica humanitas.
He said the two sections reveal the theological framework of the entire document: the opening pages raise “crucial questions” about the way humanity shapes its future, while the conclusion shows how those questions find a Christian answer in the theological virtues lived in history and sustained by prayer.
The Cardinal noted that the encyclical begins with a comparison between Babel and Jerusalem. Both cities, he said, evoke a shared human endeavour, since in both people build together. The decisive question, however, is the direction of that building.
Babel, he explained, turns in on itself and transforms human intelligence into a project of self-sufficiency, showing that unity sought without God leads to fragmentation and disintegration.
Jerusalem, by contrast, points to an effort in which human intelligence, placed at the service of God, becomes capable of promoting the dignity of every person.
Cardinal Brislin said this comparison raises a central question for the present age: what form does human endeavour take when it has access to ever more powerful tools?
The question concerns artificial intelligence and new technologies, but also the broader issue of whether technical progress is accompanied by responsibility or whether it exposes people to new forms of exclusion.
For this reason, he said, Magnifica humanitas invites everyone to pay attention to how we are building together.
Technical tools are never neutral, but are embedded in political, economic, social, and educational processes that shape the quality of shared life.
For believers, this call takes on the form of synodality. Cardinal Brislin described synodality as the concrete trace of the communion from which the Church is born and grows, enabling Christians to enter the building site of history without fear.
He said the encyclical offers a “grammar of building” centred on four elements: desire, limitation, shared responsibility, and discernment.
Human desire for happiness must be safeguarded in truth, while the recognition of limits reminds us that life is a gift to be received and protected.
Shared responsibility, he continued, reflects the principle of subsidiarity: no one possesses the entire project, and no one builds alone.
Discernment, guided by the Church’s social doctrine, helps distinguish what serves the person from what creates dependence or exclusion.
In the conclusion of the encyclical, Cardinal Brislin said, this grammar is fulfilled through faith, charity, hope, and prayer.
Faith recognizes God’s mercy in history; charity finds its source in the Eucharist; hope sustains the building of the civilization of love; and prayer opens the Church to the action of the Holy Spirit.
In this way, he concluded, Magnifica humanitas entrusts the Church with a specific responsibility: to face the struggles of history in its own distinctive way, through a synodal approach rooted in the theological virtues and focused on serving the human person.
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