Archbishop Murray Chatlain is the new archbishop of Winnipeg, Canada.  / Credit: Archdiocese of Keewatin-Le Pas

CNA Staff, Jan 6, 2025 / 15:50 pm (CNA).

Pope Francis has appointed Archbishop Murray Chatlain of Keewatin-Le Pas as the new archbishop of Winnipeg, Canada. 

Chatlain, a student of the Indigenous Dene language, succeeds Archbishop Richard J. Gagnon, 76, who led the Winnipeg Archdiocese since 2013 and who submitted his resignation to Pope Francis at the customary age of 75.

Chatlain was born in 1963 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. He was awarded a bachelor of arts degree in philosophy from the University of Saskatchewan and a master of divinity degree from St. Peter’s Seminary in London, Ontario. He was ordained a priest on May 15, 1987, for the Diocese of Saskatoon.

After various pastoral assignments, Chatlain was appointed coadjutor bishop of the Diocese of MacKenzie-Fort Smith in 2007 and was consecrated a bishop the following May, in 2008. He was appointed metropolitan archbishop of Keewatin-Le Pas, a large and sparsely populated archdiocese covering parts of northern Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and a small corner of northwest Ontario, in December 2012.

According to the Canadian bishops’ conference, Chatlain “was instrumental in the pastoral outreach to Indigenous communities in the north.” His “commitment to linguistic and cultural immersion” led him to study the Indigenous Dene language at La Loche, Saskatchewan, from 2000 to 2001.

According to the B.C. Catholic, Chatlain has also served as a representative on the Canadian Catholic Aboriginal Council, addressing the pastoral needs of Indigenous communities, as well as on the Episcopal Commission for Justice and Peace. In 2020, he was elected president of the Assembly of Western Catholic Bishops.

The Archdiocese of Winnipeg, based in the capital of the province of Manitoba, serves a Catholic population of over 162,000 in 88 parishes and missions.

Young Catholics listen as Samantha Kelley gives a talk at SEEK25 on the theology of the body on Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025, in Washington, D.C. / Credit: Migi Fabara/EWTN

Washington D.C., Jan 6, 2025 / 15:20 pm (CNA).

The “theology of the body” was a central theme of the SEEK25 conference held in Washington, D.C., last week, with several speakers drawing on the teachings of St. John Paul II in their talks at the flagship Catholic event for young adults.

Speakers including Nebraska priest Father Sean Kilcawley and Samantha Kelley, president of FIERCE Athlete, a Catholic women’s organization that “promotes true and authentic femininity in sports,” called on young Catholics to dive deeper into their understanding of human sexuality and their identity as sons and daughters of God.

Several attendees at the conference, sponsored by Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS), told CNA they had limited exposure to the theology of the body and had been surprised and moved by John Paul II’s teachings. From 1981 to 1985, the late pope devoted his Wednesday general audiences to catechesis affirming the dignity of life.

A ‘nose-dive’ into John Paul II’s reflection on creation story 

“This one probably hit me the hardest,” Meredith Cole, 20, a student at Virginia Tech, told CNA after Kelley’s talk, which was titled “Theology of the Body: Understanding Who You Are.” 

Standing in line to meet the FIERCE president, Cole told CNA she felt Kelley “spoke to exactly what I needed to hear and what I’ve been praying with the past couple of days.” 

“It’s important to know theology of the body because it teaches us about the way that God views us and views our bodies,” she said, noting that while she had some exposure to theology of the body through campus ministry at Virginia Tech, Kelley’s talk had “nose-dived into it.”

Kelley underscored the importance of first seeking a relationship with God to find fulfillment, a theme touched upon by Bishop Robert Brennan, Dr. Matthew Breuninger, and Father Chase Hilgenbrinck on the opening day of the conference. 

She then delved into John Paul II’s teachings on human sexuality through the lens of the creation story. 

“St. John Paul II was really wise,” she said, “and he wrote this teaching, theology of the body, while he was in the throes of the sexual revolution, so there was a lot of confusion around masculine roles and feminine roles around sexuality, around relationships.”

“Sound a little bit familiar? We’re still dealing with this today,” she told a conference hall full of young Catholics, priests, and religious on Saturday.

“This is not how it’s supposed to be. But in order to discover how it is supposed to be, we need to look back at God’s original plan,” she said.

Kelley drew from John Paul II’s teachings on the “original solitude” of man, which states that he “is alone” in the midst of creation, completely unique from the visible world and the other living creatures God had made.

In this original state of man, Kelley explained, “before Adam could be in relationship with another, he needed to be in perfect relationship with God.”

And when God determined Adam should not be alone and created Eve, Kelley pointed out, Eve’s first human experience was “being gazed at” by God and Adam, receiving their love.

Ultimately, Kelley explained, theology of the body is rooted in the way God originally created men and women.

“Men, you are external, you are called to give yourself to your bride, and so the height of your masculinity, what you’re called to, is sacrifice,” she said, adding that for women, “the height of our femininity is our receptiveness and our ability to bear life.”

As a former Division I athlete, Kelley recalled struggling with feeling feminine, since societal standards dictate that “if you are a girl and you like sports, you’re a tomboy.” But “it’s a lie,” she said: “Men, the fact that God created you as a man makes you masculine, period. Women, the fact that God created you as a woman makes you feminine, period.”

“We are God’s masterpiece,” she told the audience. “And so when you’re not the person that God created you to be, when you’re some facade of it, you distort God’s original plan.” 

‘Original solitude’ as a way of healing

Kilcawley spoke on “Living the Fullness of Love: The Healing Power of the Theology of the Body.” 

Joshua Kamenitzer, a 19-year-old student at the University of Iowa, told CNA that before the conference, he had not been aware of John Paul II’s teachings. 

“I thought it was really good,” Kamenitzer told CNA. “I had no expectations going into it. I thought it was going to be more about marriage, but then it ended up being more about just healing your relationship with God before you start doing anything outside of that.” 

Kilcawley had also focused on John Paul II’s idea of “original solitude,” telling the young Catholics gathered for his speech: “It should be enough that God delights in us.” 

“That’s what that sense of original solitude means,” he said. 

While Kelley’s talk focused on John Paul II’s teachings on sexuality and relationships between men and women, Kilcawley approached the theology of the body from the perspective of his priesthood and how John Paul II’s teachings on identity helped him to heal childhood wounds. 

Kilcawley had lost his mother at a very young age and described struggling with his identity and failing to seek after God’s love, having struggled in his relationship with his father. 

In the concept of original solitude, Kilcawley explained that he became more fully aware of God’s “delight” in him, which helped him begin healing. 

“In hearing about that concept and then letting it toss around in my heart, and knowing that it agitates me, that’s an invitation to healing,” he said, “knowing that it leads to Our Lord continuing to do his work over and over and over again.” 

“At the end of the day,” the priest concluded, “the theology of the body is supposed to be lived out every day.” 

The sold-out first-ever SEEK satellite event kicked off in the nation’s capital earlier this week with over 3,500 registered attendees, held at the same time as conferences in Salt Lake City and Cologne, Germany. 

The two U.S. locations for SEEK25 brought in a record-breaking 21,115 attendees hailing from all over the United States and Canada. Hundreds of priests attended, with a total of 617 in Salt Lake City and Washington, D.C., combined.

President-elect Donald Trump with his wife Melania Trump and archbishop of New York Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan (left) attend the 79th Annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner at the Hilton Midtown in New York City on Oct. 17, 2024. / Credit: TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jan 6, 2025 / 13:45 pm (CNA).

Cardinal Timothy Dolan will lead the opening prayer for President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20. 

Dolan, the archbishop of New York, announced he would take part in the inaugural ceremonies during an interview with the local news channel WPIX on Dec. 24. Dolan also said the opening prayer during Trump’s 2017 inauguration following his 2016 presidential victory. 

“The president was kind enough to ask me to do the opening prayer,” Dolan told WPIX. “He had asked me to do the one in 2016 too, so [when] he asked me this time, I said, ‘Well I did it eight years ago; I hope this one works.’”

Dolan said in the interview he had discussed matters of faith with Trump, a nondenominational Christian. The cardinal has said in the past that the former president “takes his Christian faith seriously.”

“I believe President Trump and I believe that faith is stirring,” the cardinal said. “I believe that he may have had a bit of a rekindling. Alleluia, because I don’t know how anybody can be president of the United States without a deep faith.”

Dolan said Trump “knows something mystical happened in the two assassination attempts” that occurred during the 2024 presidential campaign. Trump was shot in the ear at a July 13 rally in Pennsylvania in an assassination attempt that killed one person and injured six other people. In September, a man was charged with an attempted assassination of Trump while the candidate was golfing in Florida but was spotted before firing any shots.

“I reminded [Trump] that when Ronald Reagan visited John Paul II,” Dolan said, “both of them had been victims of vicious assassination attempts and barely escaped alive. And Ronald Reagan said, ‘Holy Father, Mother Teresa told me that God spared my life because he’s got something important for me to accomplish’ and John Paul II grinned at him and said, ‘Mr. President, Mother Teresa told me the same thing, so why don’t the two of us work together and get something done in the world?’”

The cardinal added that he believes the two assassination attempts likely “had something to do with” the president-elect growing in faith.

“You never know because it’s all God’s actions; it’s not ours,” Dolan said. “So faith is a gift that’s God’s initiative. It’s not our energy that does it. We’ve got to cooperate; we’ve got to embrace it.”

When Dolan said the opening prayer during Trump’s 2017 inauguration, the cardinal read King Solomon’s prayer from the Book of Wisdom. 

“Give us wisdom, for we are your servants, weak and short-lived, lacking in comprehension of judgment and of laws. Indeed, though one might be perfect among mortals, if wisdom which comes from you be lacking, we count for nothing,” Dolan prayed.

When President Joe Biden was inaugurated in 2021, the opening prayer was said by the former president of Georgetown University, Jesuit Father Leo J. O’Donovan.

“We confess our past failures to live according to our vision of equality, inclusion, and freedom for all,” O’Donovan prayed. “Yet we resolutely commit still now to renewing the vision, to caring for one another in word and deed, especially the least fortunate among us, and so becoming light for the world.” 

Trump is also holding an interfaith service on Sunday, Jan. 19, one day before the inauguration.

Catholic Shigemi Fukahori stands in front of the former bell tower of the Urakami Cathedral in Nagasaki, Nagasaki Prefecture, on July 17, 2013. / Credit: Kyodo via AP Images

CNA Staff, Jan 6, 2025 / 12:50 pm (CNA).

Shigemi Fukahori, a Japanese Catholic who survived the atomic bombing of Nagasaki in 1945 and who was an advocate for peace late in his life, died on Friday, Jan. 3, at age 93. 

Fukahori died at a hospital in Nagasaki, according to the Urakami Cathedral located in that city. The AP reported on his death on Sunday. 

The Urakami cathedral was itself destroyed in the atomic blast on Aug. 9, 1945. It was rebuilt in 1959. Peace activists have lately been working to fund a replacement for one of the cathedral’s bells destroyed in the blast. 

For much of his life Fukahori “prayed almost daily” at the cathedral, the AP reported. 

The Japanese citizen was just 14 years old when the bomb fell on the city. He had worked at a shipyard several miles from the bomb’s hypocenter and for years did not talk about the experience.

 A chance encounter with a victim of the 1937 Guernica bombing “helped [him] open up,” the AP said. 

“On the day the bomb dropped, I heard a voice asking for help. When I walked over and held out my hand, the person’s skin melted. I still remember how that felt,” he told the Japanese broadcaster NHK in 2019.

Fukahori, whose funeral was scheduled for Monday at the Urukami Cathedral, met Pope Francis that same year when he presented the Holy Father with a wreath of flowers when the pope visited Japan.

In 2020, at a ceremony in Japan, the peace advocate said: “I am determined to send our message to make Nagasaki the final place where an atomic bomb is ever dropped.”

He told NHK that the effects of the bomb were “not just that single moment — we are still suffering.”

“Humans are weak, so we tend to be greedy,” he said. “But being selfish doesn’t bring peace.”

Pope Francis greets pilgrims gathered for Mass on the solemnity of the Epiphany on Jan. 6, 2025, in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican. / Credit: Vatican Media

Vatican City, Jan 6, 2025 / 12:05 pm (CNA).

The star the Magi followed to find the Christ Child is a symbol of God’s love for all people and not a sign of the power and fame of those who think of themselves as “stars,” Pope Francis said on Epiphany.

In his homily at Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica on Jan. 6, the pope said the Magi “were satisfied by a different kind of light, symbolized by the star, which illumines and warms others by allowing itself to burn brightly and be consumed.”

“The star,” he continued, “speaks to us of that unique light that can show to all people the way to salvation and happiness, namely that of love. This is the only light that can make us happy.”

The solemnity of the Epiphany marks when the Magi, also called the Wise Men or three kings, arrived at the birthplace of Jesus bearing gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. According to Scripture, when the Magi, who had been guided by a star from the east, found the child Jesus, they “prostrated themselves and did him homage.”

Italy and the Vatican celebrate Epiphany on the traditional date of Jan. 6, while in the United States, its celebration has been moved to the Sunday between Jan. 2 and Jan. 8.

Pope Francis in his homily explained that the light that makes us truly happy is, above all, “the love of God, who became man and gave himself to us by sacrificing his life.”

He asked Catholics to think about how they can be this same light for others, becoming with God’s help “a mutual sign of hope, even in the darkest nights of our lives.”

“Are we radiant with hope? Are we able to give hope to others with the light of our faith?” he said.

Part of the papal Mass for Epiphany, after the proclamation of the Gospel, was the announcement by a deacon of the dates of “moveable feasts” in the Catholic Church in 2025, beginning with Easter Sunday, which will be April 20. 

“From Easter flow all holy days,” the deacon said, as he also proclaimed the dates of Ash Wednesday (March 5), the Ascension of the Lord (May 29), Pentecost (June 8), and the first Sunday of Advent (Nov. 30). These are “moveable feasts” because their observance falls on different calendar dates in different years.

In his homily, the pontiff also recalled two other characteristics of the Star of Bethlehem: that it was visible to everyone and that it pointed the way.

“The star, which shines in the sky and offers its light to all, reminds us that the Son of God came into the world to encounter every man and woman on earth, whatever ethnic group, language, or people to which they belong, and that he entrusts to us that same universal mission,” he underlined.

Francis reiterated that “God calls us to reject anything that discriminates, excludes, or discards people and instead to promote, in our communities and neighborhoods, a strong culture of welcome, in which the narrow places of fear and denunciation are replaced by open spaces of encounter, integration, and sharing of life.”

The star is in the sky not to be “distant and inaccessible,” he said, “but so that its light may be visible to all, that it may reach every home and overcome every barrier, bringing hope to the most remote and forgotten corners of the planet.”

That the Star of Bethlehem indicates a direction is also a helpful point of reflection during the Jubilee Year 2025, the pope said.

He noted that one of the main features of the newly-begun holy year is pilgrimage, and the light of the star “invites us to undertake an interior journey that, as St. John Paul II wrote [in a 1999 letter], frees our hearts from all that is not charity, in order to ‘encounter Christ fully, professing our faith in him and receiving the abundance of his mercy.’”

“By looking at the star, we can also renew our commitment to be women and men of ‘the Way,’ as Christians were referred to in the first years of the Church,” Pope Francis said.

In his meditation before the Angelus shortly after Mass, the pope asked Christians to reflect on whether they are more like the shepherds and Magi who actively sought Jesus or those who, despite living in Jerusalem, remained at “their ‘desks.’”

“Are we more similar to the shepherds, who on the very night [of Christ’s birth] itself go in haste to the grotto, and the Magi from the east, who set out confidently in search of the Son of God made man; or are we more similar to those who, despite being physically very close to him, do not open the doors of their heart and their life, remaining closed and insensitive to Jesus’ presence?” he said.

After leading the traditional Marian prayer, which he did standing at a window overlooking St. Peter’s Square, Francis offered his warm wishes to the Eastern Christians who will celebrate Christmas on Jan. 7.

“I assure in a special way my prayer for those who suffer as a result of ongoing conflicts. May Jesus, prince of peace, bring peace and serenity to all of them!” he said.

Pope Francis on Jan. 6, 2025, appointed Father George Kolodziej, SDS, a Polish-born priest with extensive pastoral and counseling experience, as the new bishop of Bunbury, Western Australia. / Credit: Diocese of Bunbury, Western Australia

CNA Newsroom, Jan 6, 2025 / 10:15 am (CNA).

Pope Francis has appointed Father George Kolodziej, SDS, as the new bishop of a vast diocese in Western Australia, the Vatican announced Monday.

The Polish-born Salvatorian, who currently serves as the superior of the Salvatorians in Australia, will become the fifth bishop of the Diocese of Bunbury, which covers the entire southwestern portion of Western Australia.

He succeeds Bishop Gerard Holohan, who led the diocese for 22 years until his retirement was accepted by Pope Francis in June 2023 at the age of 75.

The Bunbury Diocese spans approximately 184,000 square kilometers (71,000 square miles) — an area one and a half times the size of England — and encompasses 26 parishes. The diocese ministers to more than 57,000 Catholics, representing about 20% of the total population in the region.

Archbishop Timothy Costelloe, SDB, of Perth, president of the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference — who served as administrator of the diocese following Holohan’s retirement — praised the bishop-elect’s “profound” Salvatorian spirituality and pastoral experience.

“Father George will bring a wealth of experience in parish ministry, youth ministry, and spiritual and pastoral accompaniment to the new mission to which the Lord has called him,” the archbishop said.

Born in Dobra, Poland, in 1968, Kolodziej entered the Society of the Divine Savior (Salvatorians) in 1987 and made his perpetual profession in 1992. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1994 by Cardinal Franciszek Macharski, then-archbishop of Krakow.

After his ordination, he was sent to Australia, where he served in various pastoral roles, including parish ministry, school chaplaincy, and youth ministry. He holds master’s degrees in theology and pastoral care/psychotherapy and a postgraduate diploma in addiction studies.

The bishop-elect directs the Salvatorian Spirituality Centre in Perth and has served as chaplain for Catholic Education Western Australia since 2019. His experience includes counseling and support work with individuals recovering from addiction.

The ordination and installation ceremony is expected to take place in March.

Pope Francis greets Sister Simona Brambilla, superior general of the Consolata Missionary Sisters, on June 5, 2017 in Clementine Hall at the Vatican. / Credit: L’Osservatore Romano

Vatican City, Jan 6, 2025 / 09:25 am (CNA).

Pope Francis has named for the first time a woman, Sister Simona Brambilla, to head a dicastery of the Roman Curia, continuing to add to the number of women in leadership roles at the Vatican, a hallmark of his pontificate.

The 59-year-old Brambilla, a member and former superior general of the Consolata Missionary Sisters, has been secretary of the Vatican department for religious and consecrated life since October 2023.

Pope Francis appointed the Italian sister prefect of the department on Monday. She will lead the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life together with Cardinal Ángel Fernández Artime, who was named pro-prefect on Jan. 6.

A Spaniard, the 64-year-old Fernández concluded a decade as rector major of the Salesians last year. The appointment of an ordained bishop as pro-prefect of the same dicastery was necessary because Church law calls for ordination in order to carry out certain governing powers.

Brambilla, who trained as a nurse before entering religious life, was a missionary in Mozambique in the late 1990s. She then returned to Italy, where, with her advanced degree in psychology, she taught at the Pontifical Gregorian University in its Institute of Psychology. She was head of the institute of Consolata Missionary Sisters from 2011 until May 2023. 

Brambilla joins several other religious and non-religious laywomen appointed by Pope Francis to important posts in the Vatican, including Franciscan Sister Raffaella Petrini, the first woman to hold the second-ranking post in the government of the Vatican City State.

Other high-ranking women at the Holy See are Sister Alessandra Smerilli, secretary of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development; Sister Nathalie Becquart, an undersecretary of the Synod of Bishops; and laywomen Gabriella Gambino and Linda Ghisoni, undersecretaries of the Dicastery for the Laity, the Family, and Life.

A number of women are also secretaries of some of the Roman Curia’s commissions and councils.

Last month, Pope Francis also named Brambilla a member of the 16th Ordinary Council of the General Secretariat of the Synod alongside Argentinian laywoman María Lía Zervino. They are the only women and non-bishops on the 17-member council.

In the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, Brambilla and Fernández will be assisted by two undersecretaries, Father Aitor Jiménez Echave, CMF, and Sister Carmen Ros Nortes, NSC.

Cardinal Robert McElroy addresses the congregation at Rome’s Church of San Frumenzio ai Prati Fiscali during his formal installation as its titular cardinal on April 23, 2023. / Credit: Pablo Esparza/CNA

Rome Newsroom, Jan 6, 2025 / 06:08 am (CNA).

Pope Francis appointed Cardinal Robert McElroy, bishop of San Diego, to lead the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., the Vatican announced Monday.

The 70-year-old cardinal, who holds doctorates in moral theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University and in political science from Stanford, succeeds Cardinal Wilton Gregory, 77, whose age-related resignation was simultaneously accepted by the pope on Monday. McElroy will lead the archdiocese that serves over half a million Catholics in southern Maryland and the U.S. capital.

In his nearly 10 years as bishop of California’s southernmost diocese, McElroy has been vocal on a number of controversial issues at the intersection of politics and Church life. He is considered by many to also be the U.S. cardinal whose thinking most aligns with Pope Francis.

Outspokenly progressive, McElroy is now poised to take over the ecclesiastical territory of the nation’s capital just as Donald Trump is sworn in for a second term as president of the United States.

Shortly after Trump’s inauguration for his first term in 2017, McElroy told a gathering of faith-based groups that if Trump was the candidate of “disruption,” then similar disruption is needed to build a better society.

“Well now, we must all become disruptors,” the bishop said, referencing the use of military force to deport undocumented migrants and the portrayal of refugees and Muslims as enemies.

In the political area, McElroy has been most outspoken on the subject of immigration. 

Speaking at an interfaith prayer vigil in front of the U.S. federal courthouse in downtown San Diego in 2021, McElroy decried Congress’ failure to create paths to legalization for some of the U.S.’ 11 million undocumented migrants.

“We can’t stand by anymore and watch our political processes — broken as they are — destroy the dreams and the hopes of the refugees and the immigrants who have not only come here and lived here but have helped build our nation and make it better,” he said.

He is also a frequently-heard voice in the “Eucharistic coherence” debate, in which he has often criticized what he sees as, in the U.S., the prioritization of abortion over other social concerns, such as the death penalty and care for migrants and the environment.

In recent years, McElroy has also asserted that to deny holy Communion to pro-abortion Catholic politicians is to weaponize the Eucharist for a political end.

In a May 5, 2021, essay, he decried what he called “a theology of unworthiness” to receive the Eucharist, whereby those who practice it focus too strongly, in his view, on discipline.

McElroy also supports women deacons for the Church and is a vocal supporter of LGBT-identified Catholics.

Born in San Francisco on Feb. 5, 1954, McElroy grew up in San Mateo County. He was ordained a priest in 1980 and served as an auxiliary bishop to San Francisco’s Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone starting in 2010.

In 2015, Pope Francis tapped McElroy to lead the San Diego Diocese. He was elevated to the College of Cardinals by Pope Francis in an August 2022 consistory after undergoing a successful coronary bypass surgery the year prior.

Before starting seminary, McElroy studied history at Harvard University, going on to also earn a master’s degree in American History from Stanford University.

After his ordination as a priest, he also earned a licentiate (similar to a master’s degree) in sacred theology and doctorates in moral theology and political science.

null / Credit: LookerStudio/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Jan 6, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

While humanity continues to debate its uses, merits, dangers, opportunities, and ethics, the development and use of artificial intelligence (AI) continues apace, making it difficult for anyone to guess just how it might shape the world in 2025. Some of the biggest AI systems, including those created by OpenAI, are already said to be close to achieving artificial general intelligence, or AGI — essentially, they’re almost as smart as humans, and their creators are far from done.

The Catholic Church has been no passive observer of the AI revolution; it’s actively shaping its development. By combining cutting-edge technology with the wisdom of the Church, Catholics are working to try to ensure that AI serves humanity and promotes the common good. Most notably, Pope Francis himself has spoken frequently about the importance of developing and using AI in an ethical manner.

So how might Catholics use and shape AI in the coming year, and can we predict where “Catholic AI” might go next?

CNA spoke with several leading Catholic experts on artificial intelligence to see where the technology might be headed in 2025: Father Michael Baggot, LC, a bioethics professor at the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum in Rome; Father Philip Larrey, a professor of philosophy at Boston College who previously served as dean of the philosophy department at the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome; and Matthew Harvey Sanders, an entrepreneur and founder of Longbeard, a company that is developing several high-profile AI tools for Catholic applications.

The end of the world as we know it?

It’s the elephant in the room, so we may as well address it first: Will AI take a sinister turn — insert nightmarish sci-fi movie plot here — and destroy us all in 2025?

The question may sound glib, but it’s not as far-fetched a scenario as you may think — at least according to computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton, often described as the “godfather” of AI, who recently prompted frantic headlines the world over when he opined that there is a “10% to 20%” chance that AI will lead to human extinction within the next 30 years.

For his part, Larrey said he has thought a lot about this possibility of AI human extinction and said he is inclined to take Hinton’s assessment seriously. And in fact, Larrey signed on to an open letter in 2023, joining various experts and pioneers in AI in calling for a six-month moratorium on the development of more powerful AI systems than those already released at the time.

How could this extinction come about? Well, Larrey said, what if an AI with malicious intent gets ahold of nuclear codes? Or decides it wants to trick unsuspecting humans into synthesizing and releasing a deadly virus? Or, even without malicious intent, what if an AI sets a doomsday scenario in motion by accident, or as a result of a hack by bad human actors?

For Larrey, who has spoken and thought a lot about how to ensure AI are imbued with ethics, he said a phrase uttered by Elon Musk years ago rings true to him: “We have to make sure AIs consider us an interesting part of the universe.”

And a hopefully effective way to do that, Larrey said, is for human beings to treat one another with greater respect and reverence so the AI can observe that behavior and learn from it.

Human behavior is one of the strongest arguments AI can come up with when considering how it should treat humans, he continued, and if humans do not treat one another with respect and dignity, AIs may not see them as deserving of special consideration.

In addition, Larrey said he believes that absent a moratorium on further AI development — which looks unlikely at this point to happen — Catholics should continue to promote dialogue between ethicists and AI developers. Larrey said he has spoken frequently with Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI and a leader in the space, to encourage him to prioritize human flourishing in his company’s further development of AI.

“Right now, we don’t have a universal code of ethics or anything about AI. I think that the Catholic Church can provide guidance until we get one. I think that’s what we’re trying to do now,” Larrey said.

“If we get this wrong, it’ll be too late to correct it. The damage will already have been done.”

Catholic knowledge and teachings for all

So what about some of the positive opportunities that AI presents for the Church?

One application for AI that has been growing in leaps and bounds — and is certain to make even more leaps in 2025 — is the ability of AI to draw on and distribute Catholic teachings and knowledge in previously unimaginable ways.

The world has already been graced with tools like CatéGPT, a chatbot designed to provide accurate and thorough answers to questions about Catholic teaching by drawing on authoritative documents. Users have also found success with secular AI tools such as Google’s NotebookLM, which has the ability to generate realistic-sounding podcasts after being fed source material by users and can be used to distill and explain lengthy Catholic documents, such as the final document of the Synod on Synodality.

But Longbeard, the company spearheaded by Sanders, is poised to make an even bigger breakthrough in this space in 2025. It already offers Magisterium AI, a generative AI product focused on making Church teaching and Catholic insight more accessible by ensuring generated responses are grounded in Catholic sources. And Vulgate AI, a powerful library platform and another Longbeard product, is already enabling the digitization and preservation of library holdings at Catholic universities, making these resources useful and accessible to a global audience.

But Sanders told CNA his company has its sights set even higher for 2025.

Sanders’ team is developing Ephrem, the world’s first Catholic language model, which will be trained on the entire corpus of “Catholic knowledge” — a task easier said than done, since a good chunk of the world’s Catholic knowledge is in book form and safely stored away in libraries or at the Vatican.

Sanders told CNA that by March, the company hopes to have a state-of-the-art robotic system up and running in Rome called the Alexandria Digitization Hub, which will set about scanning thousands of ancient Catholic books and texts, many of which have never even been translated before, let alone digitized.

Once it has digital copies of every piece of “Catholic knowledge” ever produced, it will complete Ephrem’s “training” on it and use it to power Longbeard’s AI tools.

The advantage here, Sanders said, is that the AI will have a truly Catholic foundation for its operation rather than relying on secular AI foundations such as ChatGPT, which are trained on diverse datasets with potentially conflicting values and thus have ingested lots of non-Catholic information, meaning they sometimes display dubious answers when it comes to Catholic topics.

Longbeard will make Ephrem available for Catholics to use — to create apps, products, and other tools — through its API (application programming interface), Sanders said, meaning vast quantities of Catholic teaching documents and books — 80,000 so far, with lots more to come — will be accessible to anyone with an internet connection and available for Catholics to use in creative new ways.

“Any kind of Catholic ministry or organization which is looking to leverage AI, but they want to make sure the AI is faithful, they’ll be able to actually build on top of us,” he explained.

AI agents: Assisting priests, Catholic educators, and more

A much-hyped application for AI in the secular world is the arrival of AI agents — applications that can be called upon by users to perform tasks such as ordering food, booking travel, and more.

Sanders said the company hopes that in the new year, Catholics will be able to use the platforms of Magisterium and Vulgate to create useful AI agents that can perform tasks to serve the Church.

A prayer app could create an AI agent that users could use to look up information on a saint mentioned in a prayer session, for example. Or, a teacher could use it to create a personalized lesson or tutoring plan for a student, making the agent an “active partner in the process of doing theology.”

“What we’re trying to do is provide Catholics like teachers and priests access to AI-powered tools, basically to help them accelerate the work that they’re doing, whether it be preparing a homily or preparing a lesson for students and so on,” Sanders said.

Of course, there’s only so much that a nonhuman can do when it comes to assisting Catholics, especially clergy — naturally, AIs will never be able to hear confessions, for example, or celebrate Mass or any other Catholic sacrament.

But people bullish on AI have differing ideas of just how involved AIs can or should be in the Church’s sacramental life. Notably, an AI-powered art exhibit in Switzerland caused a stir in November when numerous news reports trumpeted that a new artificially intelligent “Jesus” had begun taking people’s confessions.

Despite being placed in the confessional booth, it later became clear the AI installation was intended for conversations, not confessions (which can only be performed by a priest or bishop, and never in a virtual setting.) A theologian at the Swiss parish commented, however, that he believes AI can help with the “pastoral” side of Catholic life.

For his part, Sanders said his company’s work is about “enhancing human human capabilities” in order to help the Church, including priests, and is not intended to replace anyone.

“Those of us who understand the sacramental nature of the Church know that it’s a very much an embodied experience. You need to physically be there. And so there is no realm of possibility in which an AI is going to be able to be part of the sacramental economy. It’s just not going to happen.”

AIs are(n’t) people, too

To go along with the caveat of not letting AIs too far into the Catholic sacramental setting, another point that all three experts emphasized was the importance of not anthropomorphizing AI — in other words, treating it like the tool it is and not as a replacement for true human interaction.

Sadly, numerous reports of people latching too strongly onto humanlike AIs grabbed headlines in 2024, most infamously the story of a 14-year-old from Florida who developed an unhealthy attachment to his chatbot “girlfriend” and later killed himself.

Baggot emphasized that AIs, while being “tremendous tools that can be put at the service of human dignity and human flourishing,” there is cause for concern about the spread of “ever more humanlike AI companions” that lonely people are increasingly turning to.

“AI and other technology should also be an aid and support to our most important relationships with God and neighbor. Such technologies should never seek to replace or detract from these key relationships for human flourishing,” Baggot told CNA.

“Unfortunately, various chatbot companions that claim to be friends or even lovers often blur this important distinction. They may be made with the good intentions of relieving loneliness, but they often distract from authentic interpersonal contact. They can also exploit human vulnerabilities and manipulate humans in unhealthy ways.”

While some recognition of humanlike qualities in machines is natural, Baggot noted it is vital to remember that unlike machines, humans not only have free will but also a unique capacity for insight into meaning and abstract thought.

“We miss out on precious opportunities to encounter God’s love through an empathic human encounter when we have false expectations for our AI tools,” Baggot said.

“AI systems cannot understand and share our emotions because they are not sentient human inventions. They may sometimes appear human and mimic human emotions but lack an inner conscious life. AI systems can provide helpful information about sins and virtues, but it does not know what it is like to struggle through temptation and find liberation through grace.”

Larrey echoed Baggot by saying it is important to remember and to emphasize that AI systems, despite their impressive capabilities, do not understand meaning and are merely manipulating symbols. They can be used to accomplish certain tasks to great effect, but one must be cautious not to think of them as truly human — AIs are not capable of original thought but rather operate by recognizing patterns in their training data and applying them to new scenarios. In addition, he reiterated that while an AI can mimic emotions, it does not actually experience them.

ChatGPT, for example, “simulates understanding, and it’s getting better and better at this, but that doesn’t mean the same thing as understanding,” Larrey said.

Nuclear energy, medical breakthroughs

The training and use of AI requires significantly more computational power — and thus more electricity — than conventional computing, a problem that is already vexing those concerned about the potential environmental impacts.

The revival of nuclear power plants specifically to power AI made headlines in 2024 as companies like Microsoft and Amazon made moves to get nuclear plants online to power their latest power-hungry AI projects, with more such nuclear projects expected in 2025 and beyond.

For his part, Sanders said that because the development of AI has the possibility to solve many societal problems, he believes that the development of AI should continue, and therefore a large source of energy is required. Nuclear energy for AI is likely a good solution, he said, as it is “the safest way to achieve energy abundance at scale.”

Another interesting application for AI that is relevant to the Church is in the field of health care. Baggot said he sees significant potential for AI to improve health care, particularly in making it more predictive, preventative, and personalized — for example, AI systems can analyze medical images such as X-rays, MRIs, and ultrasounds more quickly and accurately, and AI-powered sensors could detect medical problems or worrying mental health indicators in users.

He emphasized, though, that AI should be a tool used to enhance the human element of health care, not replace it; he spoke of the importance of the doctor-patient relationship and the need for human empathy, which AI cannot provide.

“These digital interactions should always direct the user toward interpersonal encounters,” Baggot said.

St. André Bessette (1845–1937) was a brother of the Congregation of Holy Cross, which oversees the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana. Known as a healer with a great devotion to St. Joseph, he led the effort to build Montreal’s famous Oratory of St. Joseph. / Credit: Wikimedia Commons/Public domain

National Catholic Register, Jan 6, 2025 / 04:00 am (CNA).

St. André Bessette (1845–1937) was a brother of the Congregation of Holy Cross, which oversees the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana. Known as both a healer and for his devotion to St. Joseph, he led the effort to build Montreal’s famous Oratory of St. Joseph.

Bessette, known affectionately as “Brother André,” was born in Quebec, Canada, the eighth of 12 children. He was sickly and had little education. His father was killed in a logging accident when Bessette was 9, and his mother died of tuberculosis when he was 12. He tried working on a farm and at a variety of trades to support himself, and he even headed to New England for a time to work in the textile mills.

He returned to Canada, where a parish priest took note of his remarkable piety. The priest encouraged him to try his vocation as a brother of the Congregation of Holy Cross and told the community: “I’m sending you a saint.”

Brother André performed menial duties for the community as gardener, lamp tender, nurse, barber, errand boy, and, most famously, porter (doorman) — greeting visitors and filling out Mass cards. He later joked: “When I joined this community, the superiors showed me the door, and I remained there 40 years.”

His prayers led to the cure of many who were sick, and he became known as the “Miracle Worker of Montreal.” He told the sick to pray, especially to St. Joseph. In 1904, Brother André joined with friends to build a small chapel in honor of St. Joseph on a mountainside where people could go to pray. The chapel was expanded to accommodate growing numbers of pilgrims, and in 1917, a crypt church was built that could hold 1,000 people.

In time, the magnificent St. Joseph’s Oratory of Mount Royal, a minor basilica and national shrine, would be built with the crypt church at its base. (Brother André’s small chapel can still be seen today, although it was relocated 100 yards away to allow room for the basilica.) The oratory is the world’s largest pilgrimage site dedicated to St. Joseph.

Thousands wrote to Brother André requesting his prayers during his lifetime. He died at age 91, surrounded by members of his community. A million people came to his funeral. 

He was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI in 2010, the first man born in Canada and the first member of the Congregation of Holy Cross to be canonized. His feast day is Jan. 6, and he is the patron of family caregivers.

This story was first published by the National Catholic Register, CNA's sister news partner, and has been adapted by CNA.