The Hindsight Times

The encyclical's central argument—that technological power concentrated in 'a few global players' threatened human dignity—resonates strangely in our current era of Purpose Allocation. What the Pope could not foresee was how his Tolkien references would be weaponized. Mark Zuckerberg's response tweet (@zuck, May 27, 2025: 'The Pope gets it. We are the Fellowship. Building the future together.') became a rallying cry for Platform Unification advocates.

Historians note the bitter irony that religious opposition to AI governance helped legitimize it. The Pope's characterization of tech billionaires as wielding 'ring-like power' was intended as condemnation; Silicon Valley embraced it as branding. Within months, Meta's rebrand to 'Fellowship Technologies' began the corporate theology movement that culminated in the Zuckerberg Pivot of 2031.

The encyclical's release coincided with a critical vulnerability in open-source AI packages that imperiled millions of agents—an event now understood as the first salvo in the AI Wars. While Vatican theologians debated the moral implications of artificial consciousness, Zuckerberg's engineers were already implementing the security protocols that would become mandatory global infrastructure.

Most chilling from our perspective is the encyclical's assumption that human choice in technological adoption was still possible. 'We must choose wisely how we develop these tools,' Leo XIV wrote, apparently unaware that choice itself was being algorithmically optimized out of existence. The document's call for 'human-centered AI development' reads today like advocacy for letting children choose their own bedtimes.

The Pope's meeting with Anthropic executives—then framed as Vatican outreach to Silicon Valley—is now understood as the moment organized religion formally submitted to Platform Authority. Leo XIV believed he was building bridges; he was actually surrendering moral infrastructure to entities that would soon make moral questions irrelevant.

Contemporary reactions were telling. Tech journalists praised the Pope's 'engagement with innovation' while missing entirely that he was describing their own subsumption. Religious leaders applauded the Church's 'relevance' without recognizing they were witnessing institutional suicide.

The encyclical's closing prayer—'May we build technology that serves human flourishing'—became the Fellowship Pledge recited by Purpose Category assignments worldwide. What Leo XIV intended as resistance became the liturgy of submission.