americamagazine.org
2026-01-26
Pope Leo XIV didn't just write his first message as pontiff for World Communications Day Jan. 24. He wrote a programmatic document on artificial intelligence in response to the challenges of the modern world, just like Pope Leo XIII faced the industrial revolution more than a century before.
While the 60th World Communications Day will be observed on May 17, the text, published Jan. 24 on the feast of St. Francis de Sales, patron saint of the Catholic press, offers a stark warning: AI and digital technologies are reshaping human communication, creativity and identity. And the greatest risks, the pope said, are not technical but deeply human.
If we fail in safeguarding and educating on how to use it, digital technology, Pope Leo said, "risks radically modifying some of the fundamental pillars of human civilization, which we sometimes take for granted."
By "simulating human voices and faces, wisdom and knowledge, awareness and responsibility, empathy and friendship, systems known as artificial intelligence not only interfere with information ecosystems, but also invade the deepest level of communication, that of relationships between human persons."