Welcome back to the Word on Fire show. I'm Matthew Petrusik, Senior Director of the Word on Fire Institute,

and the host of the Word on Fire show. Thank you for joining us. Pope Leo the 13th is widely regarded

as the founder of modern Catholic social thought, a vast, systematized collection of moral teachings

grounded in natural law and the magisterium of the Catholic Church. Leo the 13th was responding to widespread social, economic, and moral upheaval caused by rapid

industrialization in the West, combined with novel philosophical and political movements that

challenged traditional conceptions of the human person and the meaning of human life.

In taking the name Leo the 14th, the new pope has signaled that the church finds

itself in a similar era, one marked by tumultuous social change. The question remains, however,

whether the Catholic social thought of Leo the 13th's time is still applicable today, given the

radically different world we now live in, a world increasingly defined by the

rise and possible dominance of artificial intelligence, robotics entering into mainstream life,

the breakdown of regular physical contact among people, and the rise also of transhumanism,

moral, economic, and political realities that Leo the 13th could

probably have never conceived of.

Can Catholic social thought help us to navigate these uncharted waters?

Can it continue to guide, inspire, and warn us in an age so different from its origins?

Is it still, to put it bluntly, useful?

Here to discuss the unique challenges of our age

and the enduring relevance of the Catholic social thought tradition

is Bishop Robert Barron. Bishop, welcome back to the studio.

Hey, Matt, another to see you.

So today we're talking about modern Catholic social thought, which really first crystallized

...