By Christopher Wells and Isabella de Carvalho
Pope Leo XIV has chosen “Preserving human voices and faces” as the theme for the 60th World Day of Social Communications, set to take place on May 17 2026.
In a communiqué announcing the theme, the Dicastery for Communication – responsible for the World Day – states that “In today’s communication ecosystems, technology influences interactions more than ever before – from algorithms curating news feeds to AI authoring entire texts and conversations.”
Acknowledging that advances in technology offer “possibilities that were unimaginable just a few years ago,” the Dicastery warns that such tools “cannot replace the uniquely human capacities for empathy, ethics, and moral responsibility.”
Public communication, it says, “requires human judgment, not just data patterns.” Therefore, “the challenge is to ensure that humanity remains the guiding agent. The future of communication must be one where machines serve as tools that connect and facilitate human lives, rather than erode the human voice.”
Concerns for the risks associated with AI
Monday’s announcement warns of the real risks associated with modern technology: “AI can generate engaging but misleading, manipulative, and harmful information; replicate biases and stereotypes from its training data; and amplify disinformation through simulation of human voices and faces. It can also invade people’s privacy and intimacy without their consent.”
The Dicastery cautions, “overreliance on AI weakens critical thinking and creative skills, while monopolized control of these systems raises concerns about centralization of power and inequality.”
Those concerns highlight the urgency of introducing “Media Literacy” or even “Media and Artificial Intelligence Literacy (MAIL)” into formal systems of education, the statement says.
The Dicastery concludes that “as Catholics, we can and should give our contribution, so that people – especially youth – acquire the capacity of critical thinking, and grow in the freedom of the spirit.”
A Pope attentive to these issues
Pope Leo has repeatedly emphasized the importance for the Church of confronting the challenges posed by artificial intelligence and the development of new technologies. In his meeting with the cardinals just days after his election on May 8, the Pope explained that his choice of papal name was inspired by Leo XIII, who, “in his historic Encyclical Rerum Novarum,addressed the social question in the context of the first great industrial revolution.”
“In our own day,” he continued, “the Church offers to everyone the treasury of her social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defence of human dignity, justice and labour.”
Later, in a message to participants in the Second Annual Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Ethics, and Business Governance, Pope Leo emphasized “the benefits or risks of AI must be evaluated precisely according to this superior ethical criterion” of “safeguarding the inviolable dignity of each human person and respecting the cultural and spiritual riches and diversity of the world’s peoples.” – Vatican News
Full text of the statement from the Dicastery for Communication
