Truth Is Not a Territory
The Gospel, the Common Good, and the Church's Gift to the World: Reflections on Magnifica Humanitas
Truth Before Territory
Truth is not the property of Catholics; it belongs to God, and in His love, He has extended it to everyone. It is for this reason that Pope Leo XIV in Magnifica Humanitas writes that “truth is not a territory to be defended, but a good to be shared.” (25) Reality – the way things truly are – is objective. Truth is one because God is one. To deny the objectivity of truth is to deny God Himself. Whether in nature or in morality, the way things are does not yield to preference. Some acts are objectively good and others are objectively evil. Error does not dissolve what is and misapprehension does not alter the thing that is misapprehended. The sharing of the gift of truth demands more than proclamation; it demands participation.
Every Hand on the Wall
In the Pope’s latest encyclical, he invokes the image of Nehemiah returning from captivity to a destroyed Jerusalem. He sets to rebuilding the walls of the city by tasking each family with a particular section of the wall. This is a powerful scriptural basis for viewing subsidiarity: where all are accountable to the Lord, but each is doing their own and not another’s work. The Pope’s reading of Nehemiah is not an organizational chart but a rich, sacramental vision of society. Through subsidiarity, society is taking part in divinely ordered reality.
This shared responsibility, the Pope notes, belongs to all: “men, women, priests, artisans, heads of households and young people all play a part.” (8) With God centered, the rebuilding of a society happens first not with stones but the rebuilding of relationships. The language of the Church, and a justly ordered society, is “not one of uniformity, but one of communion, namely the harmony that arises when all persons assume their own role and recognize that their strength comes from the Lord.” (8) Communion is far more important to the flourishing of the human person than efficiency or majestic constructions.
Living in the truth, which is a good to be shared, means building a city founded on the common good, which means “building on a firm relationship with God. It means recognizing that the truth of his love calls us to life ‘in all its fullness’ (Jn 10:10) and communion with him.” (11) Each person has a part to play, in and through Christ.
The work of each will be different, whether they are “scientists and researchers, entrepreneurs and workers, educators and legislators, civil society, [or] popular movements and faith communities.” (13) Through subsidiarity, different types of people, different ages and cultures, will work together to find the “best way for fostering stability, prosperity and peace.” (13) The Pope cautions that “we should not be intimidated by tensions or differences because they can become creative forces when guided by shared responsibility.” (13) In working together for the common good, our differences and tensions can produce tremendous fruit. If we view the truth as territory to be defended, then the city will be mistaken for the wall.
What Politics Forgot
The view of the human person and society rooted in the Gospel and presented consistently in Catholic Social Doctrine from Pope Leo XIII until the present runs contrary to the political and anthropological sentiments espoused by most leaders today. Whether in government, transnational corporations, or local boards, polarization has taken hold and politics has lost the long view. Pope Leo remarks that when politics has been reduced “to short-term calculations or sterile polarizations, then the language of the common good loses credibility, and, at the same time, social inequalities and divisions grow.” (63) Thus, a faulty anthropology and a wrecked politics are not separate maladies but the same disease.
The situation is not caused by artificial intelligence. But in this new era, Pope Leo XIV warns that “when human dignity is threatened by new forms of dehumanization, ours is the pressing duty to remain profoundly human.” (15) It is not enough to point out where our politics and anthropologies go off track; instead, the “grandeur of humanity bestowed upon us and revealed in its fullness in Christ” must be lovingly safeguarded. No machine can replace this reality because “true progress always stems from a heart open to others, an intelligence willing to listen and a will that seeks what unites rather than what separates.” (15)
The anthropological and political issues are both symptoms of the same disorder: a social life that is no longer oriented toward truth as a shared good. The Social Doctrine of the Church is not a static deposit, but a living corpus. As the Pope writes, “the Social Doctrine of the Church is a legacy of wisdom, where we find principles for thought, criteria for discernment, and judgment, and concrete guidelines for action.” (3) If we wish to act justly and pursue the common good which is the true good of each person, then we must heed the Church’s timeless tradition. The Church does not merely diagnose disorders but proposes a way of life that is lived directly and locally.
The Church That Is Always Somewhere
The communion which the Church proposes is not uniformity. However, the evangelical call is singular. Every person is created in God’s image and likeness, a truth preserved in the first chapter of Genesis and attested by Judaism and Christianity alike. However, the imago Dei is the starting point, not the terminus of God’s desire for humanity. Jesus says unequivocally: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” (John 3:5) It is not enough for man to be made in God’s image; God desires eternal beatitude and shared life with humanity. But no one is saved in isolation. The logic of communion is entirely opposed to the logic of domination. The faith is always proposed, not imposed.
The Catholic Faith is in fruitful tension between the universality of the Church and the local context where Christ is encountered. As Pope Leo puts it: “The fruitful tension between the universality of the Church’s mission and her local roots is an intrinsic aspect of her life, for she encompasses the whole world, while addressing the specific issues of each context as the real setting in which the Gospel takes shape.” (26) The Church encompasses the whole world, as the Pope says, but is not bound there. The Church is cosmic, existing in God outside time and space, inclusive of Heaven. So, how does such a large, cosmic reality interact at the local level?
Where do people encounter the Gospel? Where do they meet Christ? The mission of the Church is universal because “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16) Faith comes from what is heard. (see Romans 10:17) No one becomes a Christian in a vacuum. Every Christian had the faith proposed by a friend, family member, leader, book, video, or some other instrument. This deep reality of the transmission of the faith will not change.
In the age of artificial intelligence, when humanity itself is under attack at an existential level, how do people experience the truth and come to a knowledge and love of Jesus Christ? The Pope is abundantly clear on the answer: Sacred Scripture and Tradition in engagement with the sciences “helps us clearly interpret the challenges of the present and identify appropriate ways for living out a clear Christian witness, with joy and in service to the world.” (3) God leads the way. He reveals humanity’s “vocation to a full and just life” and provides the means of attaining it.
The Sacrament of the Common Good
Pope Leo makes it clear that solidarity is not a social program but emerges from the Eucharist. Evangelization is an extension of what the Church already is, what it was founded to be, what it has been sustained by God to be. The goal of evangelization is not recruitment. The name of the flourishing of the human person is Jesus. Sharing that name with every person is an act of love and the gift of truth to be shared:
“Solidarity emerges from communion in faith and the Sacraments: Baptism and Confirmation unite us in Christ, so that we may become one Body and one Spirit, one heart and one soul (cf. Eph 4:4; Acts 4:32). The Eucharist, which is the sacrament of unity, nurtures our belonging to the Body of Christ and teaches us how to share. The diverse sensibilities present in the Church and the strong convictions that animate each person are a source of richness if they remain anchored in the certainty that unity is a gift received and a responsibility to be fulfilled.” (88)
If you’d like to read my reflection for educators on Magnifica Humanitas, you can read that here: