Western Civilization Under Attack: Part One, by Paul Seaton

Militia est vita nostra declared Job (at least in the Vulgate version of the Bible): “Our life is a constant battle.” In a similar vein, St. Augustine declared that the need for the virtue of courage is clear testimony to the reality of evil in the world. These are strong words from the past. They put us on notice and alert. One suspects that the most famous Augustinian in the world today, Pope Leo XIV, would have read and pondered them at some point. We know that he is worried about the impact of AI and is taking the time to write an encyclical on it. In this, he joins papal predecessors who worried and warned about technological threats to humanity and our humanity.

Benedict XVI coined a phrase—“secular culture”—to capture a global threat to our humanity. In it, technological rationality is deemed the highest version of reason. In truth, however, it distorts its objects and cuts humanity off from the deepest wells of spiritual and moral wisdom. Turned toward nature, it fails to listen to the logos in creation; turned toward man, it denies his God-given dignity and reduces him to manipulable matter. Similarly, Pope Francis wrote about—and excoriated—what he called “the technological mentality” that reduces creation and human beings to resources and commodities. ….