Pope Leo XIV sent a stirring message this week to those gathered for the Builders Artificial Intelligence Forum (BAIF) 2025, urging participants to ground artificial intelligence in a vision that honors the human person and serves the Church’s mission.
The Holy Father began by greeting attendees of the forum, which “brings together companies leading in Catholic AI, venture capital and angel investors, as well as prominent AI thought leaders and researchers” and was held at the Pontifical Gregorian University.
“I express gratitude,” he added, “to the organizers and all who, through research, entrepreneurship and pastoral vision, seek to ensure that emerging technologies remain oriented toward the dignity of the human person and the common good.”
Pope Leo praised the forum’s aim of fostering “a new interdisciplinary community of practice dedicated to supporting the development of AI products that serve the Church’s mission,” calling it a reflection of “an important issue of our time: not merely what AI can do, but who we are becoming through the technologies we build.”
He continued, “Artificial intelligence, like all human invention, springs from the creative capacity that God has entrusted to us (cf. Antiqua et Nova, 37). This means that technological innovation can be a form of participation in the divine act of creation. As such, it carries an ethical and spiritual weight, for every design choice expresses a vision of humanity. The Church therefore calls all builders of AI to cultivate moral discernment as a fundamental part of their work — to develop systems that reflect justice, solidarity, and a genuine reverence for life.”
He noted that the work of developing AI “cannot be confined to research labs or investment portfolios. It must be a profoundly ecclesial endeavor.”
Whether creating “algorithms for Catholic education, tools for compassionate healthcare, or creative platforms that tell the Christian story with truth and beauty,” each participant, he said, “contributes to a shared mission: to place technology at the service of evangelization and the integral development of every person.”
Such collaboration, he continued, “embodies ‘the dialogue between faith and reason,’ (ibid., 83) renewed in the digital epoch and affirming that intelligence — whether artificial or human — finds its fullest meaning in love, freedom and relationship with God.”
“With these sentiments,” Pope Leo concluded, “I entrust the work of this Forum to the loving intercession of Mary, Seat of Wisdom. May your collaboration bear fruit in an AI that reflects the Creator’s design: intelligent, relational and guided by love. May the Lord bless your efforts and make them a sign of hope for the whole human family.”
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