Notre Dame president responds to Pope Leo XIV letter on artificial intelligence
Notre Dame president responds to Pope Leo XIV letter on artificial intelligence
Publish Date: 2026-05-25 14:32:00
Source Domain: www.wndu.com
SOUTH BEND, Ind. (WNDU) – The University of Notre Dame’s president is reacting to a new letter from Pope Leo XIV focused on artificial intelligence.
In a statement, Rev. Robert Dowd says the pope is making a simple point: as AI gets more powerful, every decision about how it’s built and used should start with protecting human dignity.
Dowd says the pope signed the document on the 135th anniversary of an older church letter about workers’ rights, drawing a comparison between the industrial revolution and today’s tech revolution.
Dowd says Notre Dame sees this as a call to action, using research and teaching to help make sure new technologies serve everyone.
“In Magnifica Humanitas, Pope Leo XIV has given us a profound gift: a teaching that reminds us that every human life possesses an inviolable dignity and that safeguarding this dignity must be the foundation of every decision we make as we develop and apply artificial intelligence.
“Signing this encyclical on the 135th anniversary of Rerum Novarum, Pope Leo XIII’s historic letter on the rights of workers, is a deliberate choice. Just as Leo XIII addressed the disorientation of the industrial revolution, Leo XIV calls us to moral clarity and solidarity in the midst of this latest societal transformation, underscoring the urgency of the questions humankind faces.
“At Notre Dame, our mission as a global Catholic research university compels us to advance Pope Leo XIV’s historic contribution to Catholic social tradition through our research, our teaching, and all of our work in service of the common good. The Holy Father has highlighted the critical role that Catholic scholars and researchers — and all those of goodwill — must play in raising moral questions and actively shaping new technologies to ensure they serve the entire human family.”
Stay up to date on local news with WNDU on-air and online. Be sure to download the 16 News Now App and follow our YouTube page as we continue to bring you…
