“Without Love, I Am Nothing” (1 Cor 13): Pauline Agape as a Theological Matrix of Care in the Church's Response to Modern Revolutions, from Leo XIII to Leo XIV

Abstract

This article proposes an ethical-theological reading of 1 Corinthians 13, aiming to demonstrate that Pauline agape functions as a theological matrix underlying the Church's response to the great modern revolutions, from the first industrial revolution addressed by Leo XIII in Rerum novarum (1891) to the contemporary challenges posed by artificial intelligence under Leo XIV. In contrast to dominant rationalities that privilege abstract knowledge, efficiency, and self-sufficiency, Paul's encomium on agape introduces a relational ethical logic centered on care for the vulnerable. From a hermeneutical-critical perspective situated within Latin American moral theology, the study articulates this reading with the ethics of care and the magisterial trajectory of Catholic Social Teaching, showing how agape as care for the vulnerable operates as a theological criterion of continuity in the ecclesial response to the revolutions from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century.

Keywords: Agape. 1 Corinthians 13. Catholic Social Teaching. Ethics of Care. From Rerum novarum to Antiqua et nova.