AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler, who represented American labor at the Vatican’s “Fratelli Tutti” North-South dialogue on Sept. 11-13, called Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical Magnifica Humanitas “huge, absolutely huge.” The encyclical, issued this May, is the Pope’s first, and addresses human dignity amid the development of artificial intelligence.

“When I first read it,” she said, “I just felt like this could have been a document written by the trade union movement because it was so in alignment with the many thought pieces that we’ve put out and the convenings we’ve had. But it takes it to a global scale. And I don’t think the rest of the world is paying attention as closely. And so his voice was extremely powerful in that way because it really centers humanity. And that doesn’t get talked about enough.” She said she was impressed by “the convening power of the church.”

“We are here today,” she said at the event, “because like the church and Pope Leo we believe deeply in social dialogue and see it as an essential element to advancing the common good.” She recalled that in “Magnifica Humanitas” the Pope said, “We must make listening and dialogue the common ground upon which to cultivate justice,” adding, “our labor unions are deeply aligned with that vision.”