Italian
The editorial review of the essay by Francesco Occhetta and Davide Maggi
There is a question that traverses our time with the force of great historical anxieties: as we entrust machines with an increasing part of our intelligence, who will safeguard our humanity? It is from this question, both philosophical and political, that “The Hidden Thread: Five Principles for a More Human World” begins, the essay by Francesco Occhetta and Davide Maggi, published by Rizzoli with a preface by Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi. A volume that aims to reinterpret the five principles of the Church’s social doctrine in light of the first encyclical of Pope Leo XIV, Magnifica Humanitas, offering an interpretative key to face the era of technological revolution without losing the sense of humanity
ITALY. This is not a book about artificial intelligence. Or, rather, it is not in the conventional sense of the term. Those looking for pages dedicated to algorithms, programming, or digital architectures would likely be surprised. Occhetta, a Jesuit and moral theologian, and Maggi, an economist and scholar of the Church’s social doctrine, choose a different path: they question artificial intelligence starting from anthropology. Before even asking what machines can do, they ask what it means, today, to be human.
It is a perspective as ancient as it is revolutionary.
Today, the debate on artificial intelligence and the transformation of work is often dominated by technology and productivity. Occhetta and Maggi turn the perspective upside down: before algorithms come people. The book proposes a development model in which innovation, economy, and politics return to confront a fundamental question: does what we are building truly make society more human?
The strength of the volume lies precisely in this methodological choice. Christian social thought is removed from rhetoric and returned to the concreteness of history. Alongside the principles, there is room for lives that have embodied them: Václav Havel, Nelson Mandela, Tina Anselmi, Luigi Sturzo, Adriano Olivetti, and other men and women who have demonstrated how politics, business, and civic engagement can become places of testimony before they are places of power.
The meaning of the title is an image meant to be etched in memory. That “hidden thread” is what continues to hold together what makes us authentically human, even when economic, technological, or political power seems to sever every bond. It is the invisible thread of dignity, the one that a manager, a parliamentarian, a teacher, or a homemaker is called upon every day to mend through their decisions.
A crucial point of the book emerges when the reflection focuses on artificial intelligence. The problem is not in defining artificial intelligence, but in understanding what idea of man it presupposes. Pope Leo XIV, the authors explain, does not demonize technology; rather, he fears that it will be governed by concentrations of capital capable of exercising power greater than that of states, directing data, markets, and consciences without adequate democratic control. The issue, therefore, is not technical but political and moral.
Here the book takes on a depth that goes beyond mere commentary on current events. Technology is never neutral. It inevitably reflects the values, interests, and even the omissions of those who design it. For this reason, the authors emphasize the need to “humanize” artificial intelligence, so that it does not become a tool of exclusion but a means to reduce inequalities and promote fundamental rights.
Perhaps the most significant insight concerns moral consciousness.
A machine can process data at a speed infinitely greater than that of a human; however, it cannot feel the weight of its own decisions. It does not know remorse, compassion, or a sense of responsibility. It can distinguish patterns, but not good from evil. It is this irreducible distance that, according to the authors, preserves the uniqueness of the human person. Not intelligence as a capacity for calculation, but consciousness as the place of discernment.
When the boundary between man and machine becomes too blurred, it is not the machine that takes on human characteristics; it is man who risks losing his own. A phrase that effectively summarizes the entire structure of the volume and almost unconsciously evokes the best European personalist tradition.
Pope Leo XIV, Occhetta recalls, first invites us to “disarm words.” Before technologies, it is language that builds or destroys the world. Words can fuel fear, conflict, and polarization or open spaces of truth, dialogue, and hope. It is a call that directly concerns information, which today is urged not to reduce itself to mere content production, but to safeguard the ethical quality of public discourse.
Stylistically, Phantom Thread has a distinctive quality. It never indulges in academicism, while maintaining a remarkable cultural density. The pages alternate between philosophical reflection, economic analysis, constitutional references, and biographical testimonies with a rare balance. The writing retains the rigor of an essay without losing accessibility, a quality that makes the volume readable for both scholars and public administrators, entrepreneurs, educators, and young people seeking tools to interpret the present.
The book brings the Social Doctrine of the Church back to the present. Not as a repository of principles meant for ecclesiastical libraries, but as a civil grammar to tackle the great issues of the 21st century: artificial intelligence, the concentration of economic power, the crisis of democracy, work, sustainability, the education of new generations.
In Ignatian thought, discernment consists of learning to recognize what leads to the fullness of humanity and what instead impoverishes it. This is precisely the movement that runs through the book by Occhetta and Maggi. In a time that measures everything in terms of performance, speed, and productivity, the authors remind us of a truth that is both simple and demanding: progress does not coincide with what is technically possible, but with what makes human life more worthy.
Is this perhaps the true hidden thread that runs through every page of the volume: the belief that no innovation can ever replace that form of intelligence that arises from consciousness, responsibility, and the ability to recognize in the other not a data to be processed, but a face to be cherished.
Book available on Amazon and IBS Books.
FRANCESCO OCCHETTA, a Jesuit, is the Secretary General of the Vatican Foundation Fratelli tutti and a lecturer at the Pontifical Gregorian University. After graduating in Law in Milan, he obtained a license in Moral Theology in Madrid, a doctorate in Moral Theology in Rome, and a specialization in Human Rights in Padua. A journalist since 2000, he created the “Community of Connections” Foundation to educate young generations in social and political engagement.
DAVIDE MAGGI is a full professor at the University of Eastern Piedmont and teaches Economics from the perspective of the Social Doctrine of the Church at the Pontifical Gregorian University and at the Theological Faculty of Turin. He is a board member of Fondazione Cariplo and president of the Fondazione Comunità Novarese. He is a member of the board of directors of the European Business Ethics Network Italy and a member of the expert group of the National Office for Social Issues and Labor of the Italian Bishops’ Conference.
