The tech world is changing with the advent of AI, and it seems so is the world of God.
Pope Leo XIV met with clergy from the Diocese of Rome last week, delivering a wide-ranging address that touched on ministry, youth outreach, and fraternity among priests — but it was his pointed warning about artificial intelligence that is drawing attention from observers beyond the Church.
The Pope explicitly cautioned priests against the “temptation to prepare homilies with Artificial Intelligence,” framing it as a question of both intellectual discipline and authentic faith. His argument was twofold: first, that the brain, like any muscle, atrophies without use. Second, and more fundamentally, that a sermon is not just an information delivery mechanism — it is an act of personal witness that no AI can replicate.
“To give a true homily is to share faith,” the Pope said, “and AI will never be able to share faith.”
The remarks land at an interesting moment for the AI industry. As tools like ChatGPT and Claude become embedded in professional workflows across virtually every sector, religious institutions are grappling with where the line sits between useful assistance and authentic human expression. For the Pope, that line is clear: congregants want to see the priest’s own faith and experience of Jesus Christ — something generated text simply cannot convey.
Pope Leo also extended his skepticism to broader internet and social media use, warning priests about the illusions of TikTok and online engagement. Racking up likes and followers, he suggested, is not the same as genuinely transmitting a message or building real human connection — a critique that echoes concerns raised by researchers and ethicists about social media’s substitution of shallow engagement for meaningful relationship.
Interestingly, Pope Leo XIV had appeared to embrace AI when he’d been appointed as the head of Catholics worldwide — he’d indicated that his name had been chosen because of the upcoming disruptions AI could cause. “I chose to take the name Leo XIV,” the newly-crowned Pope said. “There are different reasons for this, but mainly because Pope Leo XIII in his historic Encyclical Rerum Novarum addressed the social question in the context of the first great industrial revolution. In our own day, the Church offers to everyone the treasury of her social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defence of human dignity, justice and labour,” he’d said.
The Pope’s comments reflect a tension that businesses and organizations across every industry are navigating: where does AI augment human capability, and where does it hollow it out? And at least for the Catholic Church, the answer in the pulpit, at least for now, appears to be that some things must remain stubbornly, irreducibly human.