By Fr Mark Robin Destura, RCJ
At the beginning of this year, the Catholic Church in northern Thailand held its 2026 Annual Regional Seminar in Nakhon Phanom Province in the country’s northeast, bordering Laos.
The gathering was attended by nearly 200 priests, five bishops, and several delegates from neighboring Laos.
Updating of clergy on new technologies
The seminar focused on the theme drawn from the recent Vatican document Antiqua et Nova: Note on the Relationship Between Artificial Intelligence and Human Intelligence, issued by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Dicastery for Culture and Education.
The main speaker was Fr Joseph Anucha Chaiyadej, Secretary General of the Office of Social Communication of the Bishops’ Conference, who addressed clergy and pastoral workers on the Church’s discernment regarding emerging technologies.
New digital tools
In his keynote address, Fr Joseph reflected on the nature and limits of artificial intelligence.
“Artificial intelligence does not possess true intelligence, consciousness, or comprehension. AI is not the ‘subject’ but the ‘object.’ It has no conscience and no life,” he said.
Basing his reflections on Antiqua et Nova, he presented the document as a “moral compass” for “those entrusted with transmitting the faith,” especially priests and pastoral ministers working in digital environments.
He urged participants, “Don’t let algorithms write your story; use technology to serve humanity.”
Fr Joseph also highlighted what he described as the ongoing tension between “statistics and wisdom.” While AI excels in “averaging and predicting” based on available data, he emphasized that human love, freedom, and intelligence remain “unpredictable and sacred.”
Truth decay, deepfakes, and filter bubbles
Turning to more serious concerns, Fr Joseph addressed the phenomenon of “truth decay” in the digital world. Beyond misinformation, he warned about the growing impact of deepfakes and filter bubbles that distort public discourse and manipulate perception.
The Vatican document states, “The danger of deepfakes is particularly evident when they are used to target or harm others. While the images or videos themselves may be artificial, the damage they cause is real, leaving ‘deep scars in the hearts of those who suffer it’ and ‘real wounds in their human dignity.’”
In the Vatican document Towards Full Presence: A Pastoral Reflection on Engagement with Social Media, describes filter bubbles as:“The consequence of this increasingly sophisticated personalization of results is a forced exposure to partial information, which corroborates our own ideas, reinforces our beliefs, and thus leads us into isolation.”
Fr Joseph warned that it is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish fabricated content from authentic information. As a result, he said, the foundations of trust necessary for genuine dialogue and the exercise of faith.
Responsible use of AI
In responding to these challenges, Fr Joseph encouraged clergy and Church institutions to be guided by the principles of transparency, inclusion, and accountability, which are also emphasized in global discussions on AI ethics.
He recalled that Antiqua et Nova highlights the teaching of the late Pope Francis on the “need for growth in human responsibility, values, and conscience, proportionate to the growth in the potential that this technology brings.”
These principles, he said, must inform pastoral practice, digital evangelization, and institutional decision-making.
Opening the “black box”
In his concluding remarks, Fr Joseph emphasized the importance of transparency in artificial intelligence systems, especially in areas that have significant social impact.
He described transparency as the effort to “open the black box”, the hidden and often opaque processes by which AI systems generate decisions and recommendations.
This, he explained, is particularly necessary in “high-impact areas” such as education, governance, communication, and social services, where technological manipulation can have serious consequences.
Only through clarity, ethical oversight, and human discernment, he said, can technology truly serve the dignity of the person and the mission of the Church.
Through initiatives such as this regional seminar, the Catholic Church in northern Thailand continues to promote a critical, faith-based engagement with artificial intelligence,one rooted in responsibility, wisdom, and fidelity to the Gospel in the digital age. – Vatican News
