Pope Leo XIV has laid out his imaginative and prescient for his papacy, figuring out synthetic intelligence (AI) as some of the important issues going through humanity and vowing to proceed in a few of the core priorities of his predecessor, Pope Francis.
However in an indication he was making the papacy very a lot his personal, Leo made his first outing since his election to a sanctuary south of Rome that’s devoted to the Virgin Mary and is of explicit significance to his Augustinian order and to his namesake, Pope Leo XIII.
Townspeople of Genazzano gathered within the sq. outdoors the primary church housing the Madre del Buon Consiglio (Mom of Good Counsel) sanctuary as Leo greeted and blessed them. The sanctuary, which is managed by Augustinian friars, has been a spot of pilgrimage for the reason that fifteenth century. The earlier Pope Leo elevated it to a minor basilica and expanded the adjoining convent within the early 1900s.
After praying within the church, Leo greeted the group and advised them that they had each a present and a accountability in having the Madonna of their midst. He provided a blessing after which acquired again into the passenger seat of the automobile, a black Volkswagen, with Vatican safety alongside.
The after-lunch outing got here after Leo presided over his first formal viewers, with the cardinals who elected him Pope two days in the past.
Leo repeatedly cited Francis’s personal 2013 mission assertion, making clear a dedication to creating the Catholic Church extra inclusive, attentive to the trustworthy and anxious with the “least and rejected.”
Leo, the primary American-born pope, advised the cardinals he was absolutely dedicated to the reforms of the Second Vatican Council that have been put collectively throughout conferences within the Nineteen Sixties that modernized the church.
He recognized AI as a important challenge, saying it poses challenges to defending human dignity, justice and labour.
Leo referred to AI in explaining the selection of his papal identify. Leo XIII, the pope from 1878 to 1903, laid the muse for contemporary Catholic social thought — most famously together with his 1891 encyclical (papal letter) Rerum Novarum, which addressed staff’ rights and capitalism on the daybreak of the economic age.
The late pope criticized each laissez-faire capitalism and state-centric socialism, giving form to a distinctly Catholic vein of financial instructing.
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Pope Leo XIV holds first mass as chief of the Catholic Church
A brand new chapter begins for the Catholic Church, as Pope Leo XIV — the primary American pontiff — delivers his first mass contained in the Sistine Chapel. His election shocked many, however his world expertise and non secular background are drawing early reward.
“In our personal day, the church presents everybody the treasury of its social instructing in response to a different industrial revolution and to developments within the subject of synthetic intelligence that pose new challenges for the defence of human dignity, justice and labour,” the present pope stated.
Towards the top of his preach, Francis, who died on April 21, turned more and more vocal in regards to the threats to humanity posed by AI and referred to as for a global treaty to manage it. He warned such highly effective expertise dangers turning human relations into mere algorithms.
Francis introduced his message to the Group of Seven industrialized nations when he addressed their summit final yr, insisting AI should stay human-centric in order that selections about when to make use of weapons and even less-lethal instruments will all the time be made by people and never machines.
Pope Leo XIV celebrates mass with the Faculty of Cardinals contained in the Sistine Chapel on the Vatican on Friday, the day after his election as 267th pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church. (Vatican Media/The Related Press)
The late Argentine pope additionally used his 2024 annual peace message to name for a global treaty to make sure AI is developed and used ethically, arguing a expertise missing human values of compassion, mercy, morality and forgiveness is simply too perilous to develop unchecked.
In Saturday’s speech, delivered in Italian within the Vatican’s New Synod Corridor, Leo repeatedly referenced Francis and the mourning over his dying.
He held up Francis’s mission assertion on the 2013 begin of his preach, “The Pleasure of the Gospel,” as one thing of his personal marching orders, suggesting he intends to proceed Francis’s priorities.
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Father Rob Hagan, a pal of Pope Leo XIV, shares with The Nationwide’s Adrienne Arsenault his reflections on the brand new chief’s character and their longtime friendship.
He referenced Francis’s insistence on the necessity for the church to make its management extra collegial, to precise “loving take care of the least and rejected,” and to interact in brave dialogue with the modern world.
Leo additionally talked about the necessity to concentrate to what the trustworthy say, “particularly in (their) most genuine and inclusive varieties, particularly common piety.”
Greeted by a standing ovation as he entered, Leo learn from his ready textual content, solely wanting up sometimes. Even when he first appeared to the world on the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica on Thursday night time, Leo learn from a ready textual content that he could have drafted someday earlier than his historic election or within the hour or so after.
