Conversational formation sessions connected to Pope Leo’s new encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas (2026), open to all COBA faculty and staff in any department or unit connected to Marquette’s yearlong encyclical discernment project.
Attendees may choose to come to any one of the three themes—or all of them. COBA faculty and staff looking to grow in their understanding of the encyclical personally, connect it to their work, and talk about it with others in a casual but guided way will be interested in these sessions.
Conference Room in the O’Brien Jesuit Community, lunch provided. RSVP (10 faculty/staff) to Fr. McNulty about lunch at: tmichael.mcnulty@marquette.edu by previous Friday.
Sessions are independent. Optional readings will be provided before and after the sessions, along with supplementary
materials for participants to use as they see fit.
Acknowledging that social justice is not only a goal to be safeguarded after technologies are deployed, but a condition that must shape their very design from the outset. The principles of Social Doctrine offer a framework for understanding this new reality. In a world where data, computational resources and regulatory influence remain in the hands of a few, to speak of the common good means exposing this new form of epistemic, economic and political asymmetry and naming the new monopolies of AI. To speak of the universal destination of goods means finding ways of ensuring universal access to both technologies and the education needed to use them. To speak of subsidiarity calls for protecting the ability of communities to make choices and corrections, rather than confining their role to mere oversight after the standards have been set elsewhere. To speak of solidarity obliges us to recognize the hidden, often exploited workers, who sustain algorithmic systems. To speak of justice requires questioning the global distribution of power that decides who in fact can train these models and who is merely subjected to them.
