Very early on, Pope Francis spoke to Vatican officials about the topic of artificial intelligence, which at the time was barely noticed publicly. The result is that today, after years of dealing with this “new frontier” of humanity, the church has a role in exploring opportunities and risks, recognized even by tech giants. We’ll find out more about how Pope Francis tackled the topic in the current second episode of our Radio Academy.
“I believe it is important that the church specifically addresses the dangers to the image of humanity, to democracy, to faith, including those that arise from the concentration of power that this technology ultimately drives.”
This is what the lawyer Paul Nemitz, one of the contributors to the European Union’s AI regulations (“AI Act”), which came into force in August 2024, told us with regard to the role of the church in the discussion about the new technology.
Church sees AI and human dignity as a central theme
Table of Contents
This is a challenge that the church under Pope Francis recognized early on and adopted. Long before he made his statement at the G7 summit in Apulia, Italy, in June 2024, which attracted great international attention, he made it clear in messages and speeches that the church had recognized the issue as central and wanted to take an active role in the discussion about it.
And one of his last messages ever was about artificial intelligence when he was in… January 2025 addressed the decision-makers gathered in Davos and called on them to exercise the “necessary care and vigilance” so that the achievements of artificial intelligence promote the common good, justice and fraternity. As is the case with all technological innovations, artificial intelligence would create or increase inequalities or conflicts if it did not benefit everyone – and in this case could not be described as true progress, said the warning voice of the Pope from Argentina.
Don’t push responsibility away from yourself
But also in a message for a forum that is coming to an end Februar 2025 in LimaPeru, dealing with the connection between artificial intelligence and sexual abuse, Pope Francis warned urgently about the risk that AI-controlled systems can distort our perception of reality in many ways – through fake news or deepfake, but in other ways too:
“The fact that our hands have not made these materials themselves,” Francis said in his message to Lima, “can give the impression that it is not we who ‘do’ something nefarious: attacking a person, stealing an image, using someone else’s idea or concept, or showing something intimate that should remain private. But this is not true: the machine responds to our commands, it executes, but it does not decide on its own unless within the limits for which it has been programmed.”
React early to emerging challenges
Pope Francis has worked tirelessly, especially in the last years of his pontificate, to promote an issue that he has identified as groundbreaking and important for human development. So he dedicated his Peace message of the year 2024 the topic “Artificial Intelligence and Peace”. In it he warned against falling into the “spiral of a technological dictatorship” in which inequalities would be exacerbated and we would no longer be able to recognize the analogue reality in a distorted reality. In particular, he was keen to warn against the development and use of lethal autonomous weapon systems:
“Autonomous weapon systems will never be able to be morally responsible subjects: the exclusively human capacity for moral judgment and ethical decision-making is more than a complex set of algorithms, and this capacity cannot be reduced to the programming of a machine which, no matter how “intelligent” it may be, always remains a machine. For this reason, it is essential to guarantee proper, authoritative and coherent human control of weapon systems,” the Pope wrote in that message.
But also that artificial intelligence, if used to promote holistic human development, could bring about important innovations in agriculture, education and culture, an improvement in the living standards of entire nations and peoples, and the growth of human fraternity and social friendship. Ultimately, Pope Francis said, “the way we use it to include the least, that is, our weakest and most needy brothers and sisters, is the measure that shows our humanity.”
Everything on CD and in our Sunday show
If you would like to listen at your leisure to all the episodes of the Radio Academy that particularly interest you: We will be happy to send you a CD with the entire series after all the episodes of the Radio Academy on Artificial Intelligence have been broadcast. Your donation will benefit the church ministry of Vatican Radio. You can order the CD by email to: [email protected] – our circle of friends ships from Germany. You can hear it every Sunday evening at 6 p.m. on our web radio channel and at 8:20 p.m. via the traditional broadcast channels.
More about the circle of friends
May God bless the circle of friends once again for their commitment and diverse support of our work. If you would like to know more about the “Friends of Vatican Radio” association: The association is recognized as a non-profit organization. In addition to the chairman Ludwig Waldmüller, Marco Chwalek and Hans-Werner Lichter are on the board on a voluntary basis; for example, they actively support us with printing, packaging and shipping the CDs with our radio academies. The association also organizes postcards and commemorative pictures, supporting our work in a variety of ways. If you would like to become a member or want to know more: the easiest way is to write an email to the board. The email address is: [email protected].
(vatican news)
date: 2026-02-08 09:48:00