Pope: Church must restore ‘trust in technology,’ guide people to Christ
Pope: Church must restore ‘trust in technology,’ guide people to Christ
Publish Date: 2026-05-22 08:12:00
Source Domain: www.vaticannews.va
Meeting with participants in a Vatican conference on artificial intelligence, Pope Leo XIV encourages efforts to educate people about AI while leading them to Christ and a “restored trust in technology.”
By Devin Watkins
Pope Leo XIV met on Friday with participants in the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, entitled “Preserving human faces and voices.”
Promoted by the Dicastery for Communication (our parent organization) and the Dicastery for Culture and Education, the one-day event brought together experts in the fields of AI, education, and theology to explore the Pope’s message for this year’s World Communications Day.
In his address, Pope Leo upheld the Church’s involvement in shaping the advance of digital technologies, while helping educate people to use them wisely.
The Second Vatican Council’s Decree on the Mass Media, he said, recalls that the Church was founded by Christ to bring salvation to everyone through the Gospel by employing the means at her disposal.
“This desire for everyone ‘to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth’,” he said, “must therefore inform not only our decisions and actions, but also the use and direction given to media, digital technology, and artificial intelligence, in order to ensure that these tools be placed at the authentic service of humanity.”
However, he noted, unbridled implementation of technology at the expense of human dignity leads to tools that exploit our need for human relationships.
Pope Leo therefore urged the Church to help people rediscover “the true meaning and grandeur of humanity as intended by God.”
The challenge facing humanity, he added, is not technological but anthropological, as it cuts to the heart of what it means to be human.
By contemplating Christ, the Incarnate Word, we come to know ourselves better, since we cannot understand our own heart apart from the heart of Christ, he said.
The Pope invited the Church and…
