Archbishop Paul Coakley, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said Pope Leoʼs first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, calls for keeping the dignity of the human person, created in God’s image, at the center of any discernment about emerging technologies.
Coakley spoke at a virtual panel June 2 held by Georgetown Universityʼs Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life.
The dialogue explored what the encyclical is asking, how technological changes can enhance humanity’s relationship with God, and also what aspects of human creation technologies can never replace.
The group also addressed the Church’s important role in the matter and why it must use its voice to speak about the emerging technologies.
Kim Daniels, director of the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life, moderated the conversation with numerous panelists including Irish Bishop Paul Tighe, secretary of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Culture and Education and a leading Vatican expert on AI.
The discussion also welcomed Meghan Sullivan, founding director of Notre Dame’s Institute for Ethics and the Common Good; Emilce Cuda, Argentinian theologian and secretary of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America at the Holy See; and Daniel Daly, founding executive director of the Center for Theology and Ethics in Catholic Health.
“When dealing with something new and complex” as the faithful read the encyclical, Coakley reminded them to focus on “the main thing.”
Magnifica Humanitas is being “proposed and discussed as an encyclical on artificial intelligence,” Coakley said. “But I think the main thing is the need to keep the human person, made of the image and likeness of God, at the center of our discernment about these new technologies.”
“So itʼs, not really, fundamentally … about the technologies. I think itʼs really about anthropology — having an adequate anthropology to really address the challenges that are being proposed by these developing and emerging technologies,” he said.
Why the Church’s voice on AI matters
In the encyclical, Coakley said, “itʼs significant that prior to beginning his reflections on AI, the Holy Father first answers a foundational question, which is ‘Why does the Church have the ability to speak at all?’”
“In doing so, he affirms that it is central to the Churchʼs mission to walk alongside humanity … and be responsive to the contemporary challenges that men and women in every age, and certainly today, are facing,” Coakley said.
Pope Leo “connects with what all of us, whether we are believers or unbelievers alike, at our very core understand and know instinctively to be true, and that is that the human person possesses an ontological and infinite dignity and therefore must be at the center of all of our deliberations” about AI, Coakley said.
“Thatʼs the center and heart of it,” Coakley said.
“I think people are concerned about whatʼs happening now and what they envision or fear might happen in the future,” he said.
Pope Leo is “bringing in this essential lens to the conversation, which has the ability, I think, to activate … the consciences of all — all who create, all who regulate, all who use or all who are impacted by artificial intelligence,” he said.
The Churchʼs voice on the matter goes back to “Vatican II, where the Church realized we shared our destiny with other people,” Tighe said.
“We journeyed together on this world. We canʼt be exempt from the struggles of our fellow brothers and sisters. We live together,” he said.
Since AI is “going to impact so much what it is to be human, how we live our lives” and “impact the destiny of so many of our brothers and sisters and of ourselves, we cannot but take it seriously,” Tighe said.
The Church also has a voice when it comes to how AI affects jobs, as “Pope Leo has been deeply inspired by the first encyclical to ever come out in the Catholic social tradition, Rerum Novarum,” which addresses “What does it mean to think that our work is part of our human dignity?” Sullivan said.
“The Church has an incredible teaching on this,” she said.
The Church says “work is an essential part of our dignity, because work is nothing more and nothing less than our ability and call to serve the common good. And so we do not want to live in a society where AI has replaced work in that sense,” she said.
The Church also must help guide the conversation as technologies impact health care.
“Jesus invites his followers to proclaim the kingdom by healing the sick. So Catholic healthcare has to be a sign that God loves all persons, especially those who are poor, sick, disabled, suffering, rejected,” Daly said.
“So this culture of encounter and accompaniment needs to be animated by Christ and is sacrosanct in Catholic healthcare,” Daly said.
Healthcare professionals “must remain the norm,” he said. “AI can augment the care that humans provide but must not replace them.”
Artificial intelligences “canʼt care for patients, they canʼt do the works of mercy. They canʼt express empathy, as Leo writes. They cannot witness the healing ministry of Jesus.”
Daly did note that AI may have benefits in healthcare despite its inability to replace human beings’ care.
AI “could allow marginalized communities to access expert-level care in areas like radiology,” he said. “AI translation services may help patients who speak languages other than the dominant language in the area to communicate and have their concerns be listened to.”
