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Welcome to Season 5, Episode 1 of What Matters Most!
In this episode I welcomed Dr. Tisha Rajendra and Dr. Ruben Rosario Rodriguez to discuss Pope Leo’s first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas. I delved into the encyclical on my own a couple of months ago, but I wanted to bring in experts in Christian ethics to discuss the encyclical on AI, migration, war, and whatever else came up for them in their readings.
Dr. Tisha Rajendra is an associate professor at Loyola University Chicago. Tisha M. Rajendra is the author of Migrants and Citizens: Justice as Responsibility in the Ethics of Immigration (Eerdmans, 2017) and has published academic articles in the Journal for the Society of Christian Ethics, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice and Political Theology. Her writing for general audiences has been published in Sojourners and the Los Angeles Times. She also has a new book coming out soon: Immigration: An Ethics of Resistance. It covers recent immigration enforcement, the history of Christian complicity with evil (German church, third Reich), a biblical theology of resistance, and virtues of resistance: solidarity, humility, magnanimity, prudence, hope and resistance.
Dr. Rubén Rosario Rodríguez, Ph.D. is a Professor of Systematic Theology and Theological Ethics at Saint Louis University, where he previously held the Clarence Louis and Helen Steber Chair in Theological Studies and is currently the Coordinator of Graduate Programs in the Department of Theological Studies. He recently published his fourth and fifth monographs, Theological Fragments: Confessing What We Know and Cannot Know about an Infinite God (Westminster John Knox Press, 2023), and Calvin for the World: The Enduring Relevance of His Political, Social, and Economic Theology (Baker Academic, 2024). This fall he is a fellow in residence at the Center of Theological Inquiry in Princeton, New Jersey, while he completes work on his next book titled, Between Despair and Complacency: Reclaiming the Theology of Hope (under review at Cambridge University Press).
I appreciated the passion and thoughtfulness they brought to the entire discussion of MH, including towards the end when they questioned why the image of rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem was the biblical counterpoint to the Tower of Babel, the confusion of languages, instead of the account of Pentecost, as Ruben proposed, when the Holy Spirit came and everyone could understand each other. I do suspect that it has to do with the image of hands on, human building, but Tisha raised an important point about the fact that Nehemiah 13 (and Ezra 9–10) address intermarriage by urging the community to cast out their foreign wives to maintain their religious identity. While it does not appear in these early chapters, it casts a pall on this image as one of humanity working together, especially in a document where a positive assessment of migration plays such a central role.
The encyclical, for any of its weaknesses, remains a powerful and essential document. Ruben noted that “it has been incredibly popular on social media and in particular with the younger generations. And first things interviewed a young person, Gen Z, and the response was people have really been looking for a response to AI. This was the first, at least in my sphere of the world, the first time a world leader made an announcement of this magnitude. And so, people are wanting more guidance, more of a response, a balanced response to AI. So kudos to the Pope for taking the lead on that.” I agree.
I also resonated with Tisha’s comment, reflecting on Augustine, as probably the only Catholic feminist who loves Augustine, that “the earthly city is where we live right now. human finitude, fallibility, vulnerability, embodiment are where grace is. And I think it’s true to say that some of the turn to AI is this temptation to escape finitude and to escape vulnerability. And the Pope is saying, well, embrace it. sure, one day we will shuffle off this mortal coil and we will be with God and we will be basking in the beatific vision, right? But none of us knows what that will be like. And right now we encounter grace through our…. in the midst of and with our mortality and vulnerability and finitude. And that’s the one thing that AI will never cherish and it will never help us do that.” I thought this was powerfully said.
Finally, the need for education is greater than ever. Tisha noted that “Leo says in 140: education is a long journey requiring patience. It needs time for development and engagement with reality beyond appearances.” We need to offer our students time, we need to offer ourselves time to learn, to reflect, to think. Do not miss the joy, do not let AI steal the joy of learning and truly knowing something deeply.
One last thing: When Tisha mentioned racist immigration policies in Canada, especially regarding South Asian immigrants, I noted an early 20th century incident in Vancouver. That was the The Komagata Maru Incident of 1914. I was not certain I remembered the name correctly, so I hesitated to mention it. Briefly, this is what the Canada Parks website says about this incident:
“In May 1914, the Komagata Maru reached Vancouver via Hong Kong and Japan carrying 376 prospective Punjabi immigrants in contravention of racially restrictive Canadian immigration law that included the “continuous journey regulation.” Its arrival provoked a strong anti-Asian backlash. The travellers were forced to remain on board for what would become two months. The local South Asian community united to fight their deportation, but eventually lost the legal battle, and the ship and most of its passengers were sent back to India. This incident continues to resonate in our history and is a symbol of the early struggle of South Asian Canadians for justice and equality.”
This, of course, is just one racist incident, of which there are many, in Canada’s immigration past.
But MH presses us to do better, to accept the limitations of our humanity, but also to accept the goodness inherent not in machines but in every human being created in the image and likeness of God.
MH 83 says that “development is truly human when it places people at the center instead of the accumulation of wealth, and when it concerns peoples as well as individuals. Justice demands the recognition of the rights of society and the rights of peoples and includes a responsibility toward future generations.”
A few thanks are in order. First of all, I am grateful to Martin Strong, who guides me in the podcasting world and joins me for the Pop Culture Matters regularly. Second, the episodes are edited, engineered, and produced by Kevin Eng who is the first listener to all the episodes and my consultant for each episode, especially with the snippets that begin each episode. Thank you, Kevin, for all of your expertise and support and especially for saving this episode when I could not convert it to a listenable or viewable file. Finally, to the Fang Fang Chandra, the CCE assistant, who helps me bring this podcast to you, but also makes the CCE run so much more smoothly.
I also want to thank our donors to the Centre, whose generosity enables this work to take place at all: Peter Bull, Angus Reid, and Andy Szocs. We are thankful to their commitment to the life of the academic world and of the work of the Church in the world by funding the work of the CCE. I am also thankful to the Cullen family, Mark and Barbara, for their support of the ongoing work of the CCE through financial donations that allow us to bring speakers to the local and international arenas.
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John W. Martens