Word processors are hell on brevity.
The whole idea of popes as writers is wrongheaded. The papacy is an administrative job primarily. The idea that popes should also be writers and theologians is an open door for novelty to sweep in. Additionally, most popes are not great writers or brilliant thinkers and too often these writings are forgettable vanity projects that detract from their primary task of running the Church.
Humanae Vitae – 12 pages; that’s how you know. -And when you read it today the Ink is still wet.
Magnifica Humanitas is supposed to be about artificial intelligence. The AI Technology Control Plan that I wrote for Neutrons ‘R Us was 70 pages long versus 184 pages for the Pope’s new encyclical. Because of required formatting issues, 3 pages of my plan were roles and responsibilities, 4 pages were definitions, 3 pages were references (many of which were regulatory documents whose girth equals the Pope’s verbosity), and 22 pages were appendices full of examples. So the substance of the plan was about 38 pages long.
BTW, God is magnificent. Humanity is (or should be) His obedient servant. I have difficulty with the Pope lauding humanity instead of God.
I believe most of this material is churned out by committee, with predictable quality.
“Oh, that part was Phil – you gotta leave that in cuz well we cut that other part he wrote…”
Also, nobody has to copy and recopy and recopy by hand, as would have had to be done less than a lifetime ago. Makes for less cohesive editing.
I also wonder, how much of it was written by AI. That would be about par for the course these days …
Sees length of Magnifica humanitas.
“Gemini, summarize the contents of Magnifica humanitas.”
AI summaries are going to be the most widely used way to read this, and it won’t even be close. That would probably be true no matter how long it was, but having it as 184 pages guarantees it. Ironically, I’ll have to wait for the AI-generated summary to know whether this is a good situation or not.
I truly hope it is a great encyclical, although I’m chuckling in thinking about receiving a nearly 200-page letter in the mail…