Don’t let digital revolution crush human dignity, Pope tells bishops
Charles Collins/Crux• June 17, 2025
Pope Leo XIV has warned the Church about the challenges being created by artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and social media In today’s world.
Speaking to the bishops of Italy, the pontiff said such developments, along with the data economy, “are profoundly transforming our perception and experience of life”.
“In this scenario, the dignity of the human being risks being flattened or forgotten, replaced by functions, automatisms, simulations,” he said today.
“But the person is not a system of algorithms: He is a creature, a relationship, a mystery,” he explained.
Leo said: “I would therefore like to express a hope: That the journey of the Churches in Italy will include, in consistent symbiosis with the centrality of Jesus, the anthropological vision as an essential instrument of pastoral discernment.
“Without a living reflection on the human – in its corporeality, in its vulnerability, in its thirst for the infinite and its capacity for bonding – ethics is reduced to a code and faith risks becoming disembodied.”
In particular, he called on bishops to “cultivate a culture of dialogue”.
“It is beautiful that all ecclesial realities – parishes, associations and movements – are spaces for intergenerational listening, for confrontation with different worlds, for care for words and relationships, because only where there is listening can communion be born, and only where there is communion does the truth become credible. I encourage you to continue on this path,” the Pope said.
Leo quoted his predecessor Pope Benedict XVI, who in 2006, described the Church in Italy as “a very lively reality, […] which preserves a widespread presence among people of every age and condition” and where “Christian traditions are often still rooted and continue to bear fruit”.
Leo said that nevertheless the Christian community in Italy “has long had to face new challenges, linked to secularism, a certain disaffection with the faith and the demographic crisis”.
“The relationship with Christ calls on us to develop a pastoral focus on the theme of peace. Indeed, the Lord sends us into the world to bring his same gift: ‘Peace be with you!’, and to become its creators in everyday life. I am thinking of parishes, neighbourhoods, areas within the country, the urban and existential peripheries,” Leo told the bishops.
“There, where human and social relationships become difficult and conflict takes shape, perhaps subtly, a Church capable of reconciliation must make herself visible.
“The apostle Paul urges us, ‘If possible, on your part, live at peace with all’ – it is an invitation that entrusts a tangible portion of responsibility to every person.
“I hope, then, that every diocese may promote pathways of education in non-violence, mediation initiatives in local conflicts, and welcoming projects that transform fear of the other into an opportunity for encounter.”
Leo continued: “May every community become a ‘house of peace,’ where one learns how to defuse hostility through dialogue, where justice is practiced and forgiveness is cherished.
“Peace is not a spiritual utopia: it is a humble path, made up of daily gestures that interweave patience and courage, listening and action, and which demands today, more than ever, our vigilant and generative presence.”
He told the bishops to look to tomorrow with serenity and to not be afraid of “courageous choices.”
“No one will be able to prevent you from being close to the people, from sharing life, from walking with the least, from serving the poor. No one will be able to prevent you from proclaiming the Gospel, and it is the Gospel that we are sent to bring, because it is what all of us, first of all, need in order to live well and be happy,” Leo added.
“Take care that the lay faithful, nourished by the Word of God and formed in the Church’s social doctrine, are protagonists of evangelisation in the workplace, in schools, in hospitals, in social and cultural environments, in the economy and in politics.”
(The photo taken in Los Angeles on June 2, 2025, shows a smartphone and computer screen displaying YouTube and TikTok accounts posting AI-generated deepfake audio of Pope Leo XIV. AI-generated videos and audios of Pope Leo XIV are populating rapidly online, racking up views as platforms struggle to police them. An AFP investigation identified dozens of YouTube and TikTok pages that have been churning out AI-generated messages delivered in the Pope’s voice or otherwise attributed to him. Photo by CHRIS DELMAS/AFP via Getty Images)