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 (parent organization of Vatican News) 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, 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.”

What it means to be human

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 her leaders to work with educational systems to foster media and AI literacy in young people, so that they learn to think critically.

As the Church seeks the spiritual well-being of young people, he said, we must help them to “learn moderation and discipline in their use” of technology.

“Young people in particular are open to this truth and desirous of discovering life’s meaning,” he said. “We must therefore help them to encounter the living Christ and teach them to integrate the use of technology within a holistic Christian lifestyle.”

Pope Leo XIV concluded by pointing out that the AI age and our response to it is an essential theme for the Church, as she seeks to help everyone grow to full maturity.

“It is my hope,” he said, “that these reflections lead to a restored trust in technology as a fruit of the genius of the human person in harmony with God’s creative design.”