The right to life and the family founded on one man and one woman have both been affirmed as fundamental to the flourishing of humanity in Pope Leo’s first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, which focuses mainly on the challenges presented by AI.

In a section on the supreme value of human rights, the Pontiff says “the first is the right to life, from conception to its natural end, without which it is impossible to exercise any other right”.

“When this fundamental right is denied — as in the cases of induced abortion, killing of the innocent and euthanasia — we are faced with choices that the Church considers gravely wrong”.

In a later section on the social conditions for hope, the Holy Father upholds the family as a primary social good.

“Founded on the enduring union between a man and a woman, it is the first environment in which all persons develop their potential, become aware of their dignity and learn the earliest forms of truth and goodness, internalising the habits that prepare them for life in society”.

He adds, however, that the family is “a fragile social good immediately affected by the economic and technological transformations reshaping the nature of work. It thus requires cultural, juridical and economic support”.