The folk wisdom in Rome is that “a fat pope follows a thin pope” — that each pope tends to be the opposite of his predecessor. In the initial days of Leo XIV’s pontificate, it seemed as if this adage might hold true. Leo chose to wear the traditional red garments of the papacy, whereas Francis insisted on a simple white cassock. Instead of Francis’s off-the-cuff remarks — which often sent Vatican officials scurrying to do damage control — Leo prefers to read carefully from prepared statements.

For those Catholics who resented Francis’s interventions on questions of political economy and ecology, or were made uncomfortable by his advocacy for migrants, these stylistic differences seemed like a sign that Leo might be “their” pope. But with the publication of his first encyclical, Magnifica humanitas, Leo XIV has shown clearly that he intends to continue Francis’s intellectual and moral legacy.

In recent centuries, papal encyclicals have been the most authoritative and formal documents published by the Holy See, allowing popes to define the intellectual agenda for the church, to weigh in on controverted questions — and, on occasion, to pronounce formal condemnations against their enemies. But in Magnifica humanitas, Leo is clear that his intended audience is not limited to Catholics. His letter “on safeguarding the human person in the age of artificial intelligence” is addressed to the whole world, and its arguments for the most part are cast in human terms: Leo’s aim is not to compel submission to his religious authority, but to persuade. This may disappoint some Catholics who had hoped for a thundering anathema against AI from the Throne of Peter. But it is a clear continuation of Francis’s desire that the church should engage with the broader world on terms the world can understand through arguments that appeal beyond the boundaries of the faith.