What a Papal Encyclical and a Secular Framework agree on about AI
In Magnifica Humanitas (15 May 2026), Pope Leo XIV names the ends an AI system must serve. The Transmutarianism framework offers one instrument for measuring whether a given system reaches them. This is a concordance, a mapping between the two; it is not a scoring of the Church.
What this is, and is not
This post is a concordance. It places the claims of Magnifica Humanitas beside the constructs of the Transmutarianism framework and records where they correspond. The Foundation assigns the encyclical no F or A value, plots no dot for the Church on the quadrant, and claims no theological authority.
The Transmutarianism framework scores an agent on two quantities: F, the deprivation it absorbs without passing on, and A, the fulfillment it emits in excess of what it received. Together F and A place an agent in one of four quadrants: Transmuter, Absorber, Magnifier, Extractor. The next section gives the full definitions and the per-Maslow weighting.
The through-line of this concordance is a division of labour between the two documents. The encyclical names the ends: human dignity, subsidiarity, solidarity, and the common good extended to data and algorithms. As doctrine it is silent on how to measure whether a given AI system honours those ends. The framework is one instrument for testing means against the ends the encyclical names. The correspondences recorded below are evidence of convergence. They are not a claim that the framework validates the doctrine, nor that the doctrine validates the framework.
The two instruments
Magnifica Humanitas, subtitled "On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence," is an encyclical letter of Pope Leo XIV dated 15 May 2026. Its opening section frames the question in two biblical images: "the primary choice is not between a 'yes' or 'no' to technology, but rather between constructing Babel or rebuilding Jerusalem." After the Introduction the encyclical proceeds through five chapters, titled in turn A Dynamic Approach Faithful to the Gospel; Foundations and Principles of the Social Doctrine of the Church; Technology and Dominance; Safeguarding Humanity at a Time of Transformation; and The Culture of Power and the Civilization of Love, closing with a Conclusion (full text).
The Transmutarianism framework scores an agent on two quantities. F, the filtering of deprivation, measures deprivation absorbed without being passed on. A, the amplification of fulfillment, measures fulfillment emitted in excess of what was received. Both are scored at each of the five Maslow levels and weighted by w = {5, 4, 3, 2, 1}: physiological deprivation carries weight 5, safety weight 4, belonging weight 3, esteem weight 2, actualization weight 1, so lower-level deprivation is weighted heavier than higher-level deprivation. The resulting F and A coordinates place an agent in one of four quadrants. A Transmuter absorbs deprivation and emits fulfillment; an Absorber takes in deprivation without emitting; a Magnifier emits fulfillment without absorbing deprivation; an Extractor passes deprivation on while retaining fulfillment.
The concordance
Each pair below places a claim from Magnifica Humanitas beside the Transmutarianism construct it corresponds to.
a. Technology is never neutral
"technology is never neutral, because it takes on the characteristics of those who devise, finance, regulate and use it" (Magnifica Humanitas, paragraph 9)
Non-neutral technology → no real agent rests at the Conduit (F = 0, A = 0)
The encyclical denies that a technology can be neutral; in the framework the only neutral position is the Conduit at F = 0, A = 0, and the agents who devise, finance, regulate, and use a technology carry it off that point into nonzero F and A.
b. The dignity of every person
"This is the dignity that belongs to every human being simply by virtue of existing" (Magnifica Humanitas, paragraph 52)
Ontological dignity → per-person, per-Maslow accounting
Both ground value in each individual person, the encyclical in ontological dignity and the framework in a per-person, per-Maslow accounting where every person's deprivation and fulfillment counts.
c. Goods held in common, including data
"when these goods remain concentrated in the hands of a few, without adequate forms of sharing and access, a new imbalance is created that contradicts the universal destination of goods" (Magnifica Humanitas, paragraph 67)
Concentration of patents, algorithms, and data → the low-A quadrants (Extractor, Absorber)
The encyclical's concentration of data and technological infrastructure among a few maps to the framework's two low-A quadrants, Extractor and Absorber, where fulfillment is not emitted in excess of what was received at the physiological and safety base; concentration that passes deprivation on while retaining fulfillment is the Extractor case.
d. Subsidiarity
"decisions are made at the closest level possible to the persons involved" (Magnifica Humanitas, paragraph 70)
Subsidiarity → cognitive sovereignty / local decision rights
Both locate legitimate decision-making at the most local level, subsidiarity in the encyclical and cognitive sovereignty in the framework.
e. The dignity of work
"they reveal whether the worker is treated as a person or merely as a cost of production" (Magnifica Humanitas, paragraph 37)
Fair wage as test of personhood → labour scored by deprivation-absorption path
Both test whether labour is treated as a person, which the framework scores as deprivation absorbed and credited, or as a cost of production, which the framework scores as an input cost.
f. Solidarity
"we are not merely neighbors to one another, but entrusted to each other" (Magnifica Humanitas, paragraph 74)
Solidarity → amplification of fulfillment (A) at the belonging level
Solidarity, the claim that we are entrusted to one another, maps to amplification of fulfillment at the Maslow level of belonging, the connection an agent emits beyond itself.
g. The common good as more than the sum
"the whole is 'greater than the sum of its parts'" (Magnifica Humanitas, paragraph 61)
The common good → the Maslow-weighted aggregate W, more than a flat sum
The encyclical holds that the common good is greater than the sum of its parts; the framework's aggregate W is a Maslow-weighted total in which lower needs count more heavily, so the whole-system measure is more than a flat sum of individual scores.
Reading an AI system on the same axes
The framework's two axes read across AI systems. A system that reduces confusion, isolation, and barriers to participation while increasing agency, knowledge, and belonging tends toward positive F and positive A. A system that concentrates power, increases dependency, or transfers harm onto vulnerable populations tends toward negative F and negative A. A chatbot, a recommender system, a hiring algorithm, a social media platform, and an AI caregiver each sit somewhere on this map, and the position follows the design rather than the category. The framework page gives a preliminary scale for reading the axes.
Reading a parish on the same axes
The framework organizes need by Maslow's levels, and it is calibratable to other accounts of human need. Its treatment of traditions names Catholic social teaching among them, alongside Indigenous, Buddhist, Confucian, and Ubuntu accounts. This concordance is one worked instance of that compatibility: the framework's ordering of what to protect, reached from Catholic social doctrine. It illustrates the claim; it does not prove it.
The institutions the encyclical addresses read on the same two axes. A parish that runs a food program, shelters the unhoused, and accompanies the grieving and the isolated absorbs deprivation at the physiological, safety, and belonging levels and emits belonging and meaning, tending toward positive F and positive A, a Transmuter. A parish that concentrates resources or withholds care from those outside it tends the other way. The score follows what the parish does, illustratively here rather than as an audited placement.
The full framework, with its scale, worked examples, and mathematics, is at transmutarianism.org/framework.
Babel and Jerusalem
The encyclical opens its account of technology with two biblical cities. In paragraph 9 it states: "Therefore, the primary choice is not between a 'yes' or 'no' to technology, but rather between constructing Babel or rebuilding Jerusalem; between a power that claims to dominate the heavens and a people who work together in the presence of God to rebuild the walls of fraternal coexistence." Babel, which the encyclical describes in paragraph 7 as "a single language, a single technology, a single direction," is uniformity that absorbs every difference into one project. Jerusalem, in paragraph 8, is "reborn, not through the initiative of one man, but through the shared responsibility of all," an undertaking "which rebuilds relationships before rebuilding with stones."
These two directions correspond to two corners of the framework's chart. Babel, a project that flattens diversity and concentrates direction, absorbing difference into itself while passing on the deprivation it produces, corresponds to the Extractor quadrant, where filtering of deprivation is negative and amplification of fulfillment is negative. Jerusalem, rebuilt through the shared responsibility of all and ordered to relationships before stones, corresponds to the Transmuter quadrant, where filtering of deprivation is positive and amplification of fulfillment is positive. The chart below places Babel at the Extractor pole and Jerusalem at the Transmuter pole, with the Conduit at the origin marking the neutral baseline the encyclical denies. No real institution or the Church is placed; this remains a concordance.
Where the two part company
The encyclical grounds human dignity theologically. In paragraph 50 it states: "At the heart of the Christian understanding of the human person lies the great biblical affirmation that men and women are created in the image and likeness (cf. Gen 1:26-27) of the Triune God." The framework reaches a structurally similar value-ordering, that every person's deprivation and fulfillment counts, from a secular and relational premise. It makes no theological claim.
The framework measures one thing: the marginal flow contribution of an agent, its F and its A. It does not measure moral truth. It does not measure salvation. It does not measure an agent's moral responsibility for the systemic conditions it operates within. It does not measure a population's aggregate state. The encyclical speaks to several of these directly; the framework is silent on all of them by design.
One question sits underneath the placement of the Conduit on the chart: whether an AI system is itself an agent or a conduit for the people and institutions that build and deploy it. The framework's taxonomy evaluates an instrument through the entity that deploys it and an autonomous agent in its own right, and it treats the boundary between them as open. Future framework work will further explore the degree to which technological systems should be treated as agents, instruments, or hybrid socio-technical actors.
Convergence is not derivation in either direction. The concordance does not claim that the framework proves the doctrine, and it does not claim that the doctrine validates the framework. Two instruments built on different foundations arrive at a similar ordering of what to protect, and the concordance records that and stops there.
A note on framing
Babel and Jerusalem are the two directions a technology can take. One concentrates language, tooling, and direction into a single hand. The other rebuilds through the shared responsibility of all and tends to relationships before stones. The encyclical names that choice in the register of doctrine. The framework offers one instrument for seeing, in any given system, which direction the flow is running. They meet at the same fork in the road.