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BARI, Italy (AP) — Pope Francis challenged leaders of the world’s wealthy democracies on Frida y to keep human dignity foremost in developing and using artificial intelligence, warning that such powerful technology risks turning human relations themselves into mere algorithms. Francis brought his moral authority to bear on the Group of Seven, invited by host Italy to address a special session at their annual summit on the perils and promises of AI. In doing so, he became the first pope to attend the G7, offering an ethical take on an issue that is increasingly on the agenda of international summits, government policy and corporate boards alike. Francis said politicians must take the lead in making sure AI remains human-centric, so that decisions about when to use weapons or even less-letha...

Did anyone head to a multiplex to see the (extended) “Lord of the Rings” trilogy on real movie screens (or what passes for them these days)? Yes, it took time and money to do this. Why go see movies with other people in a theater? After all, people are really busy, even as statistics keep rising showing how much time we dedicate to the more convenient, solitary, even hidden screens that dominate modern life. The Mattinglys of Oak Ridge went to a local theater with one or two friends — hardcore movie lovers — and tried to rally others. Part of the problem was that the calendar window to see the trilogy was so small. I thought that each of the LOTR epics would be in theaters for a full week, giving us most of June to see them. A Saturday-Sunday-Monday blitz made it harder to take part. A few...

By St. Paul Center June 14, 2024 Sometimes critics of the Catholic Church’s moral teachings will argue that her position on the sinfulness of homosexual acts should be updated because there are plenty of other biblical teachings that we no longer abide by today. If the Church is happy to disregard the Old Testament’s prohibition on beard trimming or eating shellfish, for example, then why not disregard the Old Testament’s teachings on homosexuality as well? While this objection may appear clever at first glance, it quickly falls apart for two major reasons. In the first place, the objection rests on a basic misunderstanding of the ways in which the Church continues to apply Old Testament teachings. The Medieval Catholic theologian St. Thomas Aquinas, for example, famously distinguished thr...

Jesus is “re-Edenizing” the world and he wants us to see how we can help transform the world back into the Paradise God originally created it to be on the  11th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B. What do we know about the Paradise of the Garden of Eden? Paradise was the place where Adam and Eve were made for each other — and Jesus has said that he is the bridegroom for the Church, his bride. Paradise was a place where God and man lived together as friends — and Jesus has said that he has come to restore the friendship of God and man. Paradise was also a principality — with real rules that Jesus has said must be followed “on earth as they are in heaven,” and Jesus came to renew our ability to live his way. We think of all of those things when we think of the Garden of Eden. But first and...

“The Bishop of Rome,” a study document of the Dicastery for the Promotion of Christian Unity (DPCU) on papal primacy and ecumenism combines detailed reporting on recent theological developments with proposals that ignore the major ecclesial developments of the last few years. In his 1995 encyclical, Ut Unum Sint (That They May Be One), Pope St. John Paul II invited other Christian churches and ecclesial communities to re-think how the Petrine ministry may be exercised in service of greater Christian unity. It was a bold invitation, but did not generate a significant response from other Christian leaders. In 2020, for the 25th anniversary of the encyclical, the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity began a multi-year consultation process that produced the current 43,000-word document. Fai...

By Dr. Jeff Mirus ( bio – articles – email ) | Jun 14, 2024 It is one of the odd—but in the long run potentially fruitful—features of the current pontificate that a great emphasis on synodality in theory has emerged under a Pope who tends to act unilaterally. This is not particularly surprising since we humans so often tend towards failure when it comes to living out in practice the principles we hold in theory. This characteristic is expressed most clearly in Proverbs 24:16, which notes that “the just man falls seven times a day” (though of course he “rises up again”). But it is seen not just in our simple weaknesses, but in our very human inconsistency, for we often simply do not practice what we preach. Moreover, it is almost axiomatic that what annoys us most in another is ...

Civilization, something he said, and panic buying Skip to content Happy Friday friends,  And hello from Louisville. The USCCB spring assembly has been a fairly low-key event, as these things go. There were some important bits of business done, of course. There always are. And we’ll get to those in a second. But the conference floor was a little empty in comparison to recent meetings.  Several bishops told us in advance of the meeting that they weren’t coming at all — more than a few of them, I think, are saving their energy and days out of the diocese for the Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis next month. Actually, numbers are so down that it’s created a bit of a problem in the hall. When the assembly went to vote to approve “Listen, Teach, Send,” the bishops’ national framewor...

10th Sunday in Ordinary TimeBy Fr. Victor Feltes Jesus says, “Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never have forgiveness but is guilty of an everlasting sin.” This teaching makes some people mistakenly believe they are beyond forgiveness from somehow sinning against the Holy Spirit. What then is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit? It is good for us to know, lest we fall into despair. Let’s look at the gospel context. Having heard of his miraculous healings, many people came to Jesus. The crowds were so great that Jesus and his disciples could not even eat, and Jesus soon needed to preach from a boat so as not to be crushed. Jesus was curing the sick and casting out demons, but the scribes who had come from Jerusalem said, “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” and “By the prince of dem...

(OSV News) — Since beginning their journeys mid-May, pilgrims on the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage have braved excessive heat, thunderstorms and wind — all of it closely monitored by a meteorologist in New Hampshire. John Kelley rises daily around 5:45 a.m. — earlier than pre-pilgrimage days — and with coffee in hand, spends about 90 minutes compiling information from National Weather Service websites for each of the pilgrimage’s four routes. Kelley, 64, learned about the pilgrimage at his parish last winter during a small group series on the Eucharist. Curious about what weather-related support its organizers had for such an undertaking, he reached out with suggestions. When none of those ideas came to fruition, he offered his own time and expertise. The information Kelley gathers is al...

Must be nice to have Harvard return ancestral items Harvard University is continuing its quest to return items, except one belonging to Catholics. The Peabody Museum recently sent 500-year-old Danish mummies back to Denmark. “The Harvard Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology returned five Greenlandic Inuit mummies to Denmark last week, five years after their repatriation was first requested by Danish authorities,” The Harvard Crimson reported. “The Peabody Museum respects the cultural sovereignty of communities to determine future steps,” a spokesperson told the student newspaper. Must be nice to have Harvard respect your community. The university not only repatriates Danish items, but those belonging to Native Americans. The Peabody Museum “provide[s] travel funding for Tribal repre...

Readings:Ezekiel 17:22-24Psalm 92:2-3, 13-14, 15-162 Corinthians 5:6-10Mark 4:26-34 In the cryptic message of the prophet Ezekiel, long centuries before the Lord’s coming, God gave His people reason to hope. Ezekiel glimpsed a day when the Lord God would place a tree on a mountain in Israel, a tree that would “put forth branches and bear fruit.” Who could have predicted that the tree would be a cross on the hill of Calvary, and that the fruit would be salvation? Ezekiel foresees salvation coming to “birds of every kind”—thus, not just to the people of Israel, but also to the Gentiles, who will “take wing” through their new life in Christ. God indeed will “lift high the lowly tree,” as He solemnly promises. Such salvation surpasses humanity’s most ambitious dreams. And so we express our gra...

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