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Pope Leo XIV warned priests in a recent engagement in Rome to beware of artificial intelligence (AI) and not rely on it to prepare homilies, as AI \u201cwill never be able to share faith.<\/p>\n
The head of the Catholic Church remarked on the matter alongside other issues critical to Catholics in an event which allowed several local priests to ask questions about how best to spread the word of Jesus and the messages of the Church. Pope Leo has prioritized granting the Church a coherent and influential voice in the expanding of technology since he took over for the late Pope Francis last year, stating shortly after that that even in choosing his papal name he had considered that he would be the steward of the Church at a time of great technological upheaval.<\/p>\n The event Pope Leo attended with priests in the Diocese of Rome, where he is Archbishop, took place on February 19, but his comments on AI began circulating widely online this week. According to Vatican News<\/a>, the pope took the opportunity to encourage priests to enthusiastically seek friendships among each other and real-life human interactions with those that they serve. He named artificial intelligence and the Chinese social media application TikTok as threats to the work of clergy in the Church and specifically warned against \u201cthe temptation to prepare homilies with Artificial Intelligence.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLike all the muscles in the body, if we do not use them, if we do not move them, they die,\u201d Pope Leo said. \u201cThe brain needs to be used, so our intelligence must also be exercised a little so as not to lose this capacity.\u201d<\/p>\n Pope Leo described life for young people, especially, as increasingly isolated in the face of the destruction of social bonds during the pandemic and the constant use of smartphones.<\/p>\n \u201cThey live a kind of distance from others, a coldness, without knowing the richness, the value of truly human relationships,\u201d he explained, encouraging priests to consider avenues such as culture and sports to engage with young people.<\/p>\n \u201cWe must go ourselves, we must invite other young people, go out into the streets with them; perhaps offer different ways,\u201d he suggested.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is not you: If we are not transmitting the message of Jesus Christ, perhaps we are mistaken, and we must reflect very carefully and humbly about who we are and what we are doing,\u201d Vatican News quoted the pope as saying.<\/p>\n \u201cWith a \u2018life authentically rooted in the Lord,\u2019 one can offer something different, he explained,\u201d according to the outlet, \u201cadding that often \u2018an illusion on the internet, on TikTok,\u2019 is to think one is offering oneself and gaining \u2018likes\u2019 and \u2018followers\u2019 in that way.\u201d<\/p>\n Pope Leo has made artificial intelligence a top concern of his papacy, indicating<\/a>\u00a0in comments after becoming pope that he had chosen his name as a continuation of the legacy of predecessor Pope Leo XIII, who is best known for leading the Catholic Church during the Industrial Revolution.<\/p>\n \u201cI chose to take the name Leo XIV. There are different reasons for this, but mainly because Pope Leo XIII in his historic Encyclical\u00a0Rerum Novarum<\/em>\u00a0addressed the social question in the context of the first great industrial revolution,\u201d he explained<\/a> in May 2025, when he became the Archbishop of Rome.<\/p>\n \u201cIn our own day, the Church offers to everyone the treasury of her social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defense of human dignity, justice, and labor,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n