The Holy Father says the new technology, used wrongly, could bring us to the brink of annihilation.
By Catholics for Catholics
It’s a brave, new, more dangerous world, according to Pope Leo XIV.
On Thursday, Pope Leo censured how investments in artificial intelligence and high-tech weaponry were taking the nations of the world into a “spiral of annihilation,” as he called for peace in the Middle East and Ukraine during a visit to Europe’s largest university.
Pope Leo delivered a speech at Rome’s La Sapienza University, marking the first time a Pope has visited the campus since Pope Benedict XVI called off a planned talk there in 2008, after protests from faculty and students, according to a story by Newsmax.
Some of Sapienza’s newest students received Pope Leo warmly on Thursday, including young Palestinians who arrived in Italy this week on a “humanitarian corridor” from Gaza to continue their studies at the university.
Working in tandem with the Italian government, Catholic organizations have brought hundreds of Palestinians to study and receive medical care in Italy since the Hamas-driven war in Gaza began in 2023.
Some of the Gaza students met with the Holy Father during a brief greeting at the campus chapel. They reunited after his speech in the main lecture hall of the university, which was founded by Pope Boniface VIII in 1303.
Though the meeting with the students was cordial, Pope Leo minced no words when it came to other matters. He deplored how military spending had increased dramatically this year, especially in Europe, at the expense of education and healthcare, while “enriching elites who care nothing for the common good.”
The Holy Father called for better monitoring of how AI was being developed and used in military and civilian contexts “so that it does not absolve humans of responsibility for their choices and does not exacerbate the tragedy of conflicts.”
“What is happening in Ukraine, in Gaza and the Palestinian territories, in Lebanon, and in Iran illustrates the inhuman evolution of the relationship between war and new technologies in a spiral of annihilation,” he said.
Save and Share This Catholic Patriotic Minute!
