Just over a year into the papacy of the first American pope, Pope Leo XIV has released his first encyclical: Magnifica Humanitas (“Magnificent Humanity”). Subtitled “Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence,” the encyclical is timely, beautifully written, and challenging.

There is so much to digest and pray about, and I recommend that everyone read the encyclical in full (like other encyclicals, it’s available for free on the Vatican’s website). In the meantime, however, I’ve gathered five takeaways for Catholic professional women. I’ll be meditating on them over the coming days, weeks, and months. I hope you will, too!

The most common question I get asked as an author of a new Bible study and a mom of seven is, “How did you do that?”

Fertility tracking apps have become incredibly popular, but most have secular goals, and many create a risk of exposing your information. Enter PeakDay, created by the Fertility Science Institute of the Couple to Couple League. The Catholic fertility and period-tracking app is designed as a safe, values-driven alternative to apps that often promote birth control, abortion, and other controversial agendas.

If I could recommend a book to any young female professional, it would be “Something Wicked: Why Feminism Can’t Be Fused with Christianity” by Carrie Gress, Ph.D. The insights she shares about the dangers of feminism are ones that I have spent the last several years untangling as a mid-career professional and full-time, stay-at-home mom. This book would have saved younger me some heartache in terms of how I viewed the working world and myself.