Pope XIV takes on a changing world facing complex matters

When Pope Leo XIII ascended to the Papacy in 1873, the world thought it had reached the pinnacle of industrial revolution. Pope Leo XIV has this week arrived in not too dissimilar times. Only that science and tech has now spiralled into realities that pale the 18th and 19th Centuries. 

Leo XIV has a very complex world to lead as the Pontifex Maximus. It is the world of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4iR). Leo XIII is famous for the Papal Letter of 1891, titled Rerum Novarum. This letter to the Catholic clergy addressed mostly labour relations and emerging social science philosophies that threatened the very existence of the Church. Within a very short period, starting from the 18th Century, Europe had transformed from a mainly agrarian society to a mechanised world. It would carry this profile of itself to the rest of the world.  

But Europe also experienced major economic and social shifts. So major, in fact, that when Leo XIII took over from Pius IX, the wider relevance of the Church was in doubt. Modernity, labour relations and the great philosophies of the day cast the Church as a conspirator in oppression of poor people by industrial capitalists. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels had proclaimed in 1843 that religion was the opium of the masses.  

In their criticism of Friedrich Wilhelm Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, the two declared that religion was “the soul of the soulless.” It existed to help the wealthy classes keep the poor in poverty. That the poor accepted to remain poor by embracing the euphoria that promised them better life in heaven.

Accordingly, religion was cast as a passive form of protest, by the poor, against the social and economic relations. Marx and Engels agitated for the overthrow of this order, including the overthrow of the State and religion, everywhere in the world. This philosophy was enticing, a form of opium to the intellect.   

God and religion

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Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum was the Church’s answer. It defined the position of the Church to the challenges of modernity and attendant philosophies. Today, 4iR has come with a new order that confounds even the great minds of the day. In the prologue to his 2024 book titled Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI, Yuval Noah Harari is a worried scholar. He writes, “We are also busy creating new technologies like AI that have the potential to escape our control and enslave, or annihilate us.”

As usual, Harari also takes a broadside at God and religion. He sees both as inventions by man. Their role is to explain things that we do not understand. Yet, is AI the new God in town? “Even at this embryonic stage of the AI revolution, computers already make decisions about us – whether to give us a mortgage, to hire us for a job, to send us to prison. This trend will only increase and accelerate, making it more difficult to understand our own lives. Can we trust computer algorithms to make wise decisions and create a better world?” 

What is the future of humankind as Pope Leo XIV arrives? The fledglings that troubled his predecessor Leo XIII have come of full age. Rerum Novarum’s concerns about the rights of workers to a fair wage, and to safe and dignified working conditions are resurfacing, especially in Third World countries. Here in Kenya, even professionals like doctors and teachers strike every so often, over these concerns. The non-professional cadres are even more pathetic.  

Unemployment, especially among the youth, has led to abuse of labour. There is no dignity in labour anymore. Trade unions have morphed into cartels. Dinosaur self-serving union leaders shamelessly flaunt opulence in social media. Meanwhile, workers toil. They take home wages that are miserably below the bread line. Even university graduates pick up menial jobs, if they find them. They take home miserable earnings that condemn them to life in distressing environments. On Sundays, they troop to Church, to bless pastors, and to sow seeds of blessings. They are perpetually trapped in ennui, waiting for Godot. Meanwhile, union leaders tangle with corrupt politicians, to keep the status quo intact.  

Here in Africa, and Kenya, this is the tragic state of the art as Pope Leo XIV embarks on his new spiritual tour of duty. Rats, politicians and union leaders have eaten our ethics, morals and values. Yet we are left with questions of social and economic significance for the Church to address, all the way from Rome to home. Shall we survive rats, politicians, unionists, and tech?

-Dr Muluka is a strategic communications adviser. www.barrackmuluka.co.ke