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The author is a Franciscan monk, professor of ethics at the University of Pontifical Gregorio, and technology advisor for the Vatican.
Last summer, leaders representing 11 global religions, from the Eastern faiths, including Buddhism, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism and Bahai to Abrahamic religions such as Christianity, Judaism and Islam, were gathered in Hiroshima, Japan to sign a Roman call.
Why did representatives of these ideas sign this appeal because of their humanitarian approach to technology development, sometimes distant? Because they share concerns about how humanity is affected by artificial intelligence.
I attended the signature and witnessed the atmosphere of collaboration. The attendees wanted to contribute to a future where innovation could not be used for mass destruction.
The moments of change we face are so deep that we can compare the opportunities and crises to the Renaissance. This is an age of obstacles and transformation that unstable the established order of the medieval world. European society has shifted from a worldview centered around Europe and the Catholic Church to a global perspective with new lands, people and resources. European religious unity was fragmented, and a new economic order has destabilized traditional structures.
For centuries, churches have changed the way they view technology. Now they are seen as agents of social change who have to manage their effectiveness. Technological innovation is recognized not as a dogmatic issue but as a factor of social justice. The Church does not consider AI as dangerous (as in Galileo’s telescopes), but it encourages faith to once again ask itself what it means to be human and what human location is in this new universe made up of creatures and intellectual machines.
Therefore, it is our responsibility to question what the correct use of AI should be. We are witnessing the birth of new beliefs that are changing the frontier of the existential horizon. In Silicon Valley, the interpretation of Peter Tiel’s late Stanford professor René Girard suggests that conflict is inevitable. Elon Musk promotes what is called posthumanism, where humans are fused with technology. Computer scientist Timnit Gebble proposed Tesqueal. This is a philosophical neologism that imagines a future of human reinforcement and suggests that harmful projects are justified by the threat of human extinction.
In the words of the late Pope Francis, “We live in the changing times, not the age of change.”
Francis’ successor continues to emphasize the importance of AI. In one of his first speeches, he explained the meaning behind his decision to take the name Leo XIV. This was related to Leo XIII, who presided the church in the aftermath of the Industrial Revolution, opposed inequality and supported workers. Pope Leo points to the frontier of the new Industrial Revolution. Today, it is AI, not the assembly line, that is driving modern social change.
This year, the Vatican is hosting executives from Google, Meta, Anthropic and Palantir at conferences on AI, ethics and corporate governance.
The Church wants to use its social doctrine to protect human dignity and work. This is not a political ideology, but a theological and moral reflection that arises from Christian faith, a set of principles, teachings and guidelines developed in relation to social, economic, political and cultural issues in the modern world. It is shared not only with Catholics, but with the rest of society.
In our modern age of collective turmoil, the Catholic Church and other religions view themselves as companions of those looking for meaning.
