Global Overview of Religious Registration Systems: Latin America

Brandon Reece Taylorian (University of Lancashire) has conducted a global study of religious registration. In a series of videos for Talk About: Law and Religion, Taylorian explores challenges and trends related to the registration and recognition of religious organizations. He also discusses the impact of these challenges and trends on religious freedom and minority rights. This episode focuses on Latin America.

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Building Babel or Rebuilding Jerusalem: Magnifica Humanitas on AI, Power, and the Measure of Civilization

Erik Longo is full professor of constitutional and public law at the University of Florence.

This post is a part of our series on Magnifica Humanitas.

I write these notes on Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical Magnifica Humanitas (MH), moved by its expressive power and convinced it will become essential reading on the human and social consequences of new digital technologies. The encyclical itself opens with the responsibility we bear, as individuals and a community, in the face of the challenges of our time:

Each generation inherits the task of shaping its own era, of guiding history to become a place where the dignity of every person is safeguarded, justice is promoted and fraternity is made possible. Yet every era also runs the risk of creating an inhumane and more unjust world (MH, para. 1).

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Pope Leo XIV, Peter Thiel, and the Future of Humanity: The New Pope’s First Encyclical and Its Political Significance

Martina Bär is professor of fundamental theology at the University of Graz (Austria).

This post is a part of our series on Magnifica Humanitas.

“The Pope is working for the Chinese Communists.” With this provocative statement, US tech billionaire Peter Thiel made international headlines just weeks after Pope Leo XIV published his first encyclical. According to Thiel, the West risks losing the race for artificial intelligence (AI) to China—not least because moral authorities such as the Vatican are slowing technological progress. While authoritarian states continue to develop AI without restraint, democratic societies, he argues, place unnecessary constraints on themselves by worrying about ethics. Behind this criticism lies a worldview that regards technological superiority as the decisive factor in global geopolitical power.

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