By Devin Watkins
The Catholic Church marked the 60th World Day of Social Communications on Sunday, May 17.
Speaking at the Regina Caeli prayer, Pope Leo XIV recalled the World Day and encouraged everyone to promote forms of communication that always respect the truth of the human person.
He pointed to the vast advances in technology in recent years regarding communication, and called for technological innovation to be directed toward the good of humanity.
“I encourage everyone to commit themselves to promoting forms of communication that are always respectful of the truth of the human person, toward which every technological innovation should be directed,” he said.
Pope’s message for 60th World Communications Day
Pope Leo XIV released his Message for the 60th World Day of Social Communications on January 24, focused on the theme: “Preserving Human Voices and Faces.”
In his message, the Pope said faces and voices are sacred, since God created human beings in His image and likeness.
“Each of us possesses an irreplaceable and inimitable vocation, which originates from our own lived experience and becomes manifest through interaction with others,” he said.
However, he said, new digital technologies threaten our uniqueness by simulating voices, faces, and emotions.
“By simulating human voices and faces, wisdom and knowledge, consciousness and responsibility, empathy and friendship,” he said, “the systems known as artificial intelligence not only interfere with information ecosystems, but also encroach upon the deepest level of communication, that of human relationships.”
The real threat to humanity is our willingness to offload our ability to listen and think critically to AI and social-media algorithms, said the Pope in his message.
“We are thus robbed of the opportunity to encounter others, who are always different from ourselves, and with whom we can and must learn to relate,” he said. “Without embracing others, there can be no relationships or friendships.”
In response, Pope Leo XIV encouraged people to embrace responsibility, cooperation, and education in our interactions with AI and one another.
“The digital revolution requires digital literacy, along with humanistic and cultural education,” he said, “to understand how algorithms shape our perception of reality, how AI biases work, what mechanisms determine the presence of certain content in our feeds, what the economic principles and models of the AI economy are and how they might change.”
“We need faces and voices to speak for people again,” concluded Pope Leo’s message. “We need to cherish the gift of communication as the deepest truth of humanity, to which all technological innovation should also be oriented.”
