Pope Leo bans Catholic priests from using AI to write sermons

Pope Leo has banned priests from using AI to write sermons because it will ‘never be able’ to speak to God.

Leo XIV issued the warning during a closed-door meeting with clergymen from the Diocese of Rome on Thursday, Febuary 26.

After delivering his address to the clergy, Pope Leo XIV took part in a question-and-answer session with four priests from different age groups chosen to ask questions.

In response to one parish priest’s question about how to be effective in this postmodern culture while avoiding returning to ‘anachronistic’ approaches, the pope laid out his beliefs on AI.

The 70-year-old Pope said the first step is ‘truly knowing the community where I am called to serve’.

Recalling a recent visit to the southern neighbourhood of Ostia in Rome, he explained how ‘to speak with these people, we must begin by knowing their reality as deeply as possible’.

Calling upon the priests to continue to experience real life, he ordered them to stay vigilant over artificial intelligence and the internet, issuing a warning against ‘the temptation to prepare homilies with artificial intelligence’.

He added: ‘Like all the muscles in the body, if we do not use them, if we do not move them, they die.

‘The brain needs to be used, so our intelligence must also be exercised a little so as not to lose this capacity.’

He explained that ‘to give a true homily is to share faith,’ and insisted AI ‘will never be able to share faith’.

‘If we can offer a service that is inculturated in the place, in the parish where we are working, people want to see your faith, your experience of having known and loved Jesus Christ,’ he added.

An earlier question from a young priest the Pope ordained last May asked how young priests can support their peers in the modern world.

The Pope also asked priests not to be satisfied with just the young people who already come to the church and urged them to seek out others.

He said: ‘We must organize, think, seek initiatives that can be a form of outreach.

‘We must go ourselves, we must invite other young people, go out into the streets with them; perhaps offer different ways’, he said, suggesting sports, art and culture.

The Pope said getting to know others on a personal level is the key element, adding that knowledge comes through ‘a human experience of friendship’ with young people who ‘live in isolation, in incredible loneliness.’

He highlighted how this loneliness has increased after the pandemic especially, but also because of the use of smartphones.

‘They live a kind of distance from others, a coldness, without knowing the richness, the value of truly human relationships,’ the Pope explained.

He said they must understand how to offer young people ‘another type of experience of friendship, of sharing, and gradually of communion,’ and from that experience ‘invite them also to know Jesus.’