Anita Draper
Catholic Herald staff
The Diocese of Superior’s annual Fall Conference for educators, catechists and clergy typically has a spiritual focus. Missionary discipleship, personal renewal, hope and Catholic identity have all been themes in recent years, with evangelization at the forefront since Bishop James P. Powers began to emphasize Catholics must continually grow in their faith – and share that faith with others – during the pandemic.
But this year, diocesan leaders pivoted, highlighting new technology that impacts both the secular and Catholic communities. Artificial Intelligence was the subject of the 63rd annual gathering held Friday, Oct. 24, at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Rice Lake.
Even in these early stages, Artificial Intelligence has had a profound effect on everyday life. From “writing” papers for students to “impersonating” priests and faking videos of Pope Leo XIV and Bishop Robert Barron, among many others, the technology is important enough – and disruptive enough – to have inspired the pope’s choice of the name “Leo” to signal the start of a new AI revolution, an allusion to Pope Leo XVIII’s reign during the Industrial Revolution.
The Oct. 24 event featured morning and afternoon keynotes with speaker John Brahier, director of Educational Engagement for Longbeard, a Catholic AI company.
Brahier and others conducted two afternoon breakout sessions, and the conference’s hundreds of attendees also gathered for lunch and a 9 a.m. Mass celebrated by Bishop Powers.
“What a sign of hope and joy this celebration is every year,” Bishop Powers said as he opened the Mass, citing the “excitement of meeting old friends” and making new ones and the challenge of learning new things.
After welcoming Brahier to the Diocese of Superior, the bishop joked, “It may surprise you that AI wasn’t my first choice of topics. I may not be the most techy person in the church. I did start sending text messages last year.”
The bishop quipped that he started hearing about AI a year ago, and he took the same approach as when emails began: “I just know if I ignore it, it’s gonna go away.”
Chuckling and acknowledging this wouldn’t be the case, he opened his homily with an analysis of the Gospel of Luke, chapter 12:54-59, in which Jesus challenges his listeners for failing to interpret the sign of the times.
“What a perfect set of readings we have for our gathering today,” the bishop said. “Jesus, in the Gospel, uses those familiar images that the people of his day would have all understood.”
Speaking of their ability to interpret the weather, Jesus confronts the people, asking if they can read signs from the earth, why can’t they interpret the signs he is giving them – the miracles, his teachings, his presence – and understand who he is.
“Rather than reading the signs of the times, they’ve allowed others – in this case the scribes and the Pharisees – to determine for them who Jesus is,” the bishop said. “He’s an imposter or he’s a lunatic, but he certainly isn’t the Messiah. He’s not a great mighty king that God has promised.”
This is, Bishop Powers observed, something we continue to struggle with – understanding the kingdom of God. The people of his time might have known who Jesus was if he’d come in a “golden chariot,” but that is not how Jesus comes.
The challenge of reading the signs of the times is that it can be confusing, depressing or scary – “it can be easy to throw our hands up in the air” and give up. It can also be divisive.
“One of the best ways Satan works in the world is by dividing us. And I don’t know that our world, our country, has ever been more divided than it is now,” he said, emphasizing “the need for us to see that. The need for us to understand it.”
He added, “God needs us to be one family – undivided, united as one.”
The Diocese of Superior is currently undergoing a 33-day Eucharistic consecration, which began Oct. 22 and finishes Nov. 23. Referencing the consecration, which is taking place in schools, parishes, homes and study groups guided by Mathew Kelly’s book, “33 Days to Eucharistic Glory,” Bishop Powers spoke of the necessity “to make that journey together, because how important that journeying together is, how important that we help each other read those signs of the times – help each other see the truths and the lies on both sides, help each other come together as one body.
“If we can’t do that – how are we going to help others?” he asked, referring to the younger generation that has never known anything but technology, “the generation that has been taught in so many ways that my phone holds all the truth …. all the answers.”
How many of our children today have a stronger relationship in their lives than their phone? He asked rhetorically, and added, how “sick and scary that is.”
We know that technology is available, he said, and used right, it can be so good; but, in the wrong hands, used by the wrong person, technology can be so “absolutely evil.”
Bishop Powers also spoke of the limitations of AI. Having heard at a bishops’ meeting that someone approached Pope Leo seeking permission to set up an account that would have offered virtual “meetings” with him, the bishop wondered, “If that had been allowed, how many people would have realized they were not talking to a real human being, they were not talking to a pope? It could sound so real.”
Others are proposing sites that offer the Sacrament of Reconciliation or access to the Eucharist.
How quickly technology, AI, is replacing “that intellect that our God has given to us,” he said. But, made in the image and likeness of God, we far exceed any technological advance.
“As a church, we need to relish that fact and proclaim it – that great gift God has given us,” the Bishop said. “We may never be able to spit out the facts that AI-generated whatever can, but AI can’t spit out human love, care, that concern that we have for one another … an AI-generated source can’t pick up a young child, calm their fears, give them hope.”
As he prepared to close his homily, Bishop Powers noted that, kept in its proper place – used as a tool to uphold human life and dignity – AI can do much good.
Also, wisdom, “not the accumulation of data,” is the gift of human intelligence.
“Just because we can do something, doesn’t mean we necessarily should do it,” he added, citing advances in medicine and science in the past 25 years and the importance of discerning whether human dignity is being upheld.
“Now, as we continue the celebration, let us ask our God to help us open our hearts and our minds to receive the gift that AI is never, ever going to be able to generate, to reproduce, the gift of the body, blood, soul and divinity of our God … Let us be those pilgrims of hope,” he concluded, “and cherish those gifts God has given us.”
