By Justin McLellan
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Francis asked tech leaders to measure the value of their innovations not in processing power or profit potential, but in their capacity to promote human dignity.

In a meeting at the Vatican March 27 with scientists, engineers, businesspeople and lawyers working across the tech industry, the pope reflected on the social and cultural impact of artificial intelligence.  
The benefits of artificial intelligence and automated learning for humanity will be realized only if developers act in an “ethical and responsible way” that respects the intrinsic dignity of each person, the pope said.

But he expressed concern that such respect is missing when, for instance, artificially intelligent software is used in producing legal sentences by analyzing an individual’s criminal record and generalized data.

“An individual’s past behavior should not be used to deny him or her the opportunity to change, grow and contribute to society,” he said. “We cannot allow algorithms to limit or condition respect for human dignity, nor can we allow them to exclude compassion, mercy, forgiveness and, above all, an openness to hope for personal change.”

Technology experts fear that the data used to build algorithms in artificially intelligent legal software may amplify pre-existing biases in justice systems, further oppressing already marginalized groups.
“That data can be contaminated by prejudices and social preconceptions,” said the pope. “The fundamental value of a person cannot be measured by a set of data.”

He noted how digital technologies have increased global inequality both economically and in terms of political and social influence. Such inequality, he said, is rooted in a “false sense of meritocracy.”

“There is a risk of conceiving the economic advantage of a few as earned or merited, while the poverty of many is seen, in a certain way, as their fault,” he said.

Pope Francis invited the industry leaders to consider how their innovations may create a more equal and inclusive society.

“Are our national and international institutions able to hold technology companies accountable for the social and cultural impact of their products? Is there are a risk that increased inequality can compromise our sense of human and social solidarity?” he asked.

The pope recalled the ethical principles in AI development agreed to by religious, government and tech industry leaders at the Vatican: transparency, inclusion, responsibility, impartiality, reliability, security and privacy.

In January, executives from Microsoft and IBM as well as representatives from the Muslim and Jewish communities met at the Vatican to sign a document calling for a human-centered approach to AI development in which the principles were agreed upon.

The document advocated for establishing “an outlook in which AI is developed with a focus not on technology, but rather for the good of humanity and of the environment.”

At the March meeting, the pope thanked the tech leaders for engaging in discussions on responsible technology use that are “open to religious values,” and said that dialogue between religious believers and non-believers on science and ethics “is a path to peacebuilding and integral human development.”

By Justin McLellan
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Being an apostle does not mean climbing up the church’s hierarchy to look down on others but humbling oneself in a spirit of service, Pope Francis said.

During his general audience in St. Peter’s Square March 15, the pope explained that apostleship as understood by the Second Vatican Council produces an equality – rooted in service – among laypeople, consecrated religious, priests and bishops.

“Who has more dignity in the church? The bishop? The priest? No, we are all Christians at the service of others,” he said. “We are all the same, and when one part (of the church) thinks it is more important than the others and turns its nose up (at them), they are mistaken.”

Vatican II, the pope said, did not focus on the laity’s relationship with the church’s hierarchy as a “strategic” move to adapt to the times, but as “something more that transcends the events of that time and retains its value for us today.”

The Second Vatican Council’s Decree on the Church’s Missionary Activity states that collaboration between the hierarchy and the laity is essential for the church to fully live out its mission.

Viewing Christian life as a chain of authority “where the person on top commands the rest because they were able to climb up (the ladder)” is “pure paganism,” said the pope.

Reflecting on the passage from St. Luke’s Gospel in which Jesus sends out 72 apostles ahead of him two-by-two, Pope Francis said that service is the vocation Jesus gives to all, including “to those that seem to be in more important positions.”

“Listening, humbling yourself, being at the service of others: this is serving, this is being Christian, this is being an apostle,” he said.

The pope encouraged Christians to pray for members of the church’s hierarchy who appear conceited since “they have not understood the vocation of God.”

Pope Francis also asked that all members of the church reflect on their relationships and consider how that impacts their capacity for evangelization.

“Are we aware that with our words we can harm people’s dignity, thus ruining relationships?” he asked. “As we seek to dialogue with the world, do we also know how to dialogue among ourselves with believers? Is our speech transparent, sincere and positive, or is it opaque, ambiguous and negative?”

“Let us not be afraid to ask ourselves these questions,” the pope said, because examining the responses can help lead Christians toward a more apostolic church.

In his greetings to the faithful, Pope Francis also asked that religious sites in Ukraine be respected in the midst of the war. He expressed his closeness to the Ukrainian Orthodox religious community at the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra monastery complex after the Ukrainian government said it would not renew a lease for the monks who belong to the Orthodox community related to the Russian Orthodox Church.

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church declared its independence from Moscow May 27, 2022, yet members of its senior clergy have since been accused of openly collaborating with the Russian army in Ukraine.

By Carol Glatz
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Everyone must engage in politics, which is simply what it means to take part constructively in the life of a nation or society, Pope Francis said in a new book of interviews.
Even the Gospel has “a political dimension” in that it seeks to convert “the social, including religious, mindset of the people,” he said, according to a series of excerpts published by Vatican News and other outlets Feb. 26.

Marking the 10th anniversary of the pope’s election, journalists Sergio Rubin and Francesca Ambrogetti will release a book-length compilation of a decade of interviews with the pope in Spanish March 1.
Titled “El Pastor” (“The Shepherd”), the book covers the “challenges, reasons and reflections” of Pope Francis over the course of his pontificate. Rubin and Ambrogetti had previously compiled two years of interviews with then-Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Buenos Aires for their 2010 book “The Jesuit,” which became a bestseller after the cardinal was elected pontiff, and retitled “Pope Francis. Conversations with Jorge Bergoglio: His Life in His Own Words.”

In “The Shepherd,” the authors pick up where they left off to cover his papacy and the path he has followed.

He said his plan has always been “to carry out what the cardinals expressed in the general congregations on the eve of the conclave,” which was to “revitalize the proclamation of the Gospel, reduce centralization in the Vatican,” eradicate the abuse of minors and fight economic corruption.

When asked what he would say to those who accuse him of “doing politics,” the pope said, “Yes, I am doing politics. Because everybody has to do politics. Christian people have to do politics. When we read what Jesus said we see that he was doing politics.”

The pope then explained what he meant by “politics,” saying it is “a way of life for the ‘polis,’ for the city.”
“What I do not do, nor should the church do, is party (or partisan) politics. But the Gospel has a political dimension, which is to transform the social, including religious, mindset of the people,” he said.

Speaking about the increasing polarization in the world, the pope said, “we are not water and oil, we are brothers and sisters.”

Humanity must rise above this “category of water and oil and move toward fraternity,” which is precisely what people have a hard time seeing when there is a conflict, that their vocation is fraternity, he said.

“When we ignore this, divisions begin and it’s like that everywhere,” he said.

When it comes to economic activity, Pope Francis said he does not “condemn” capitalism or the market economy, but that there needs to be what St. John Paul II advocated for, that is, a new “social economy of the market,” which would balance competition and social progress.

Today, the world of finance prevails, he said, and “where we can all agree is that the concentration of wealth and inequalities have increased and many people die of hunger.” If he focuses so much on the poor and those in need, “that’s because that is what Jesus did and what the Gospel says.”

By Justin McLellan
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Our Lady of Guadalupe is a message of “mestizaje,” or a fusion of cultures that leads to an encounter between humanity and God, Pope Francis said.

In a message to Archbishop Francisco Cerro Chaves of Toledo, Spain, Pope Francis reflected on the figure of Guadalupe to mark the occasion of the shrines of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico and in Spain becoming “sister shrines.”

“Mary, our mother, is always a bond of communion for her people,” and her invitation to prayer and communion “has been expressed in many places in the world with the invitation to build a temple that would be a house with doors always open to all,” the pope said in his message, which was published Feb. 13.

Two of the most famous temples in Hispanic culture built at Mary’s request are the Guadalupe shrines in Spain and Mexico which are considered “sister shrines” following a ceremony in Guadalupe, Spain, Feb. 13 in which Archbishop Cerro and Cardinal Carlos Aguiar Retes, archbishop of Mexico City, Mexico, both participated.

The royal monastery of St. Mary of Guadalupe in Spain was constructed in the 14th century on the site where tradition holds that Mary appeared to a farmer who discovered a dark-skinned statue of Mary. Many Spanish conquistadors who traveled to the New World came from the area around Guadalupe and had a strong devotion to the Marian figure.
The Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City houses St. Juan Diego’s tilma, the mantle that bears the miraculous image of Mary who appeared to the Indigenous saint and spoke to him in Nahuatl, an Aztec language. An estimated 12 million people visited the basilica each year before the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, making it Catholicism’s most popular Marian shrine.

In his message to Archbishop Cerro, Pope Francis said the origin of the word “Guadalupe” is not entirely known, and its roots have been traced to Arabic, Latin or Nahuatl. He noted that while this could be interpreted as a conflict, it can also “be read as a sign from the Holy Spirit who makes his message of love heard in every language.”

The pope then traced how the different linguistic interpretations of “Guadalupe” combine to produce new meanings: in Arabic it means “hidden river,” which refers to grace; its Latin origins could mean “river of wolves,” referring to a “haven of peace for those troubled by their own sins” and violence; and the Nahuatl roots would mean “the one who conquers the serpent.”

The Gospel, while remaining the same, is “enriched in meaning” in every historical moment and by every culture it encounters, the pope said.

By Carol Glatz
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Marriage is not a ceremony, a social event, a mere formality or an abstract ideal, Pope Francis said.

Marriage, according to Christian revelation, is a gift from God that joins a man and woman together so that “the two shall become one flesh,” and “what God has joined together, no human being must separate,” the pope said, quoting the Gospel of Matthew.

Marriage is also “an extraordinary good, a good of extraordinary value for everyone: for the spouses themselves, for their children, for all families with whom they form relationships, for the entire church, for all of humanity,” the pope told members of the Roman Rota, a Vatican-based tribunal that deals mainly with marriage cases and requests for marriage annulments.

“Every true marriage, even a non-sacramental one, is a gift of God to the spouses,” the pope told the tribunal members Jan. 27. “Matrimony is always a gift! Conjugal fidelity rests on divine fidelity; conjugal fruitfulness is based on divine fruitfulness. Man and woman are called to accept this gift and freely correspond to it with the reciprocal gift of self.”

As the members inaugurated the tribunal’s judicial year, Pope Francis said he wanted to focus his talk on marriage “because there is a great need in the church and in the world to rediscover the meaning and value of the conjugal union between a man and a woman on which the family is based.”

St. John Paul II described the celebration of the sacrament of matrimony as offering a “new heart” so that “the couples are not only able to overcome ‘hardness of heart,’ but also and above all they are able to share the full and definitive love of Christ, the new and eternal covenant made flesh,” the pope said, quoting from the 1981 document, “Familiaris Consortio.”

“Marriage according to Christian revelation is not a ceremony or a social event, no,” Pope Francis said. “It is neither a formality nor an abstract ideal: it is a reality with its own precise consistency, not a form of mere emotional satisfaction that can be constructed in any way or modified at will.”

At the same time, the pope said, “marriage should not be idealized, as if it existed only where there are no problems.”

God’s plan “is always fulfilled imperfectly” in human hands, he said, and yet the Lord is present in the family “with all their daily troubles and struggles, joys and hopes.”

Life as a family makes it “difficult to pretend and lie; we cannot hide behind a mask,” he said. “If that authenticity is inspired by love, then the Lord reigns there, with his joy and his peace.”

For married couples in crisis, “the church, both pastors and other faithful, accompanies them with love and hope, seeking to support them,” he said. “A fundamental resource for facing and overcoming crises is to renew awareness of the gift received in the sacrament of marriage, an irrevocable gift, a source of grace on which we can always count.”

Pope Francis said there is a need “to rediscover the permanent reality of marriage as a bond,” especially since the “bond” is often thought of as an “imposition, a burden, a ‘tether’ in opposition to the authenticity and freedom of love.”

“If, on the other hand, the bond is understood precisely as a bond of love, then it reveals itself as the core of marriage, as a divine gift that is the source of true freedom and that safeguards married life,” he said.

The church can assist engaged and married couples to deepen their love and overcome difficulties not just by helping them accept its doctrinal teachings and its valuable spiritual resources, he said. The church can also help by offering “practical programs, sound advice, strategies based on experience and psychological guidance.”