By Deborah Castellano Lubov
“The world needs honest and courageous entrepreneurs and communicators, who care for the common good.”
Pope Leo XIV gave this reminder when addressing the Advisory Board of the RCS Academy, a higher school of formation in the fields of journalism, economics, communication, and enterprise.
The Pope expressed his delight to meet them in days where they are discussing the possibility of a new humanism in the digital age.
He acknowledged they will be engaging “in dialogue on the relationship between ethics and artificial intelligence, on how communication can be at the service of persons and not become a system of algorithms that indefinitely reproduce—without any conscience or awareness—our reasonings, transforming them into mere data.”
An important educational challenge
The Pope noted that the Advisory Board finds itself before an important educational challenge.
“Education,” he said, “is what makes active and transformative the equal dignity of all human beings, promoting an effective local and global citizenship, in the sign of participation, solidarity, and freedom.”
“For this reason,” he continued, “education in inhabiting digital environments and in the critical relationship with artificial intelligences is essential and must not be separated from the integral development of persons and communities.”
Caveat against dehumanization and manipulation
To this end, the Holy Father cautioned, “it is necessary to avoid that, in the overload of information and in the void of wisdom, new forms of dehumanization and manipulation grow—forms which, disguising themselves, pass off exploitation as care and falsehood as truth.”
Thus, the Pope said their work appears twofold, since “it consists in informing responsibly” and, “at the same time, in enabling their recipients to evaluate everything critically, in order to distinguish facts from opinions, true news from false ones.”
Conscience and responsibility
To recognize and make accessible the logics that generate messages, he observed, is “essential for acting with conscience and responsibility in the shared construction of public discourse.”
In this context, the Holy Father recognized that large enterprises “have a crucial role in these processes,” “not only as cultural patrons, but also as actors engaged on the front line.”
“Naturally, this careful work,” he said, “involves the economy and business strategies, and therefore all of you—your objectives of growth and of communication.”
“Sometimes one hears it said: ‘Business is business!’ In reality,” the Pope explained, “it is not so.”
Probing the meaning of our actions
“None of you,” he said, “is absorbed by an organization to the point of becoming a cog in its machinery, or a mere function. Nor is there true humanism without critical sense, without continual rethinking—that is, without the courage to ask questions that probe the meaning of our actions: Where are we going? For whom and for what are we working? In what way are we making the world better?”
Such reflections, the Pope said, require courage and farsightedness, because there is no future without justice.
“In particular, the economy of communication,” the Holy Father said, “cannot and must not separate its destiny from that of truth.”
Transparency is key
“Transparency of sources and ownership, accountability, quality, clarity, and objectivity are the keys truly to open to all peoples the right of citizenship.”
“Otherwise,” he warned, “a merely formal affirmation of this right would appear as a wound to human society and a betrayal of its weakest or most marginalized members.”
In this regard, the Pope urged them to remember the late Pope Francis’ words expressed to the Director of the Italian daily newspaper Corriere della Sera, in which the late Pope urged communicators to understand the importance of words and see how they can connect and divide.
From these words, the Holy Father stressed, “we draw the appeal to responsibility and honesty in the fulfillment of our respective roles, in order to build together the information of the future.”
“In this undertaking,” he said, “creativity and capacity for vision are needed.”
Need for farsighted and constructive thought
“A farsighted and constructive thought,” he explained, “is needed—one that frees communication from the haste of fashions, from the partiality of interests, from polemic that does not educate to listening.”
“The ‘new things’ that we must face,” he underscored, “require new thoughts and new perspectives, capable of involving those who instead are excluded or instrumentalized by logics of power.”
This, Pope Leo explained, “is the challenge for those who put ‘news’ into circulation.”
Need for honest entrepreneurs seeking common good
The world, the Holy Father underscored, “needs honest and courageous entrepreneurs and communicators, who care for the common good.”
Pope Leo XIV concluded by calling on the RCS Academy’s Advisory Board to always be aware of their role, looking beyond the narrow horizon of what may appear to be immediate advantages but are in reality ways of impoverishing the future.
“May the Gospel of Christ, which remains ever good news for the world,” he said, “always inspire you in your journey.” – Vatican News
