Vatican City (AP) – Pope Leo XIV presented the vision of its papacy on Saturday, identifying artificial intelligence as one of the most critical questions that it is confronted with humanity and promising to pursue some of the fundamental priorities of Pope Francis.
But in a sign that he was making the papacy very clean, Leo made his first release since his election to a sanctuary south of Rome which is dedicated to Madonna and has a particular importance to his Augustinian order and his namesake, Pope Leo XIII.
WATCH: The long -standing friend of Pope Leo XIV shares information about what to expect his papacy
The city dwellers of Genazzano gathered on the square outside the main church housing the sanctuary of Madre del Buon (mother of good advice) while Leo greeted them and had blessed them. The sanctuary, managed by the Augustinian brothers, has been a place of pilgrimage since the 15th century and the previous Pope raised it to a minor basilica and widened the adjacent convent in the early 1900s.
After praying in the church, Leo praised the crowd and told them that they had both a gift and a responsibility to have Madonna in the middle of them. He offered a blessing and then returned to the passenger seat of the car, a black Volkswagen, with the security of the Vatican next door.
The after-Lunch release intervened after Leo chaired his first official public, with the cardinals who elected him Pope. In this document, Leo has repeatedly quoted Francis and the proper statement of the Argentinian Pope of 2013, which makes it clear to make the Catholic Church more inclusive and attentive to the faithful and to a church which examines the “less and rejected”.
Leo, the first American pope, told Cardinals that he was fully engaged in the reforms of the Council of the Second Vatican, the meetings of the 1960s that modernized the Church. He identified AI as one of the main problems with which humanity is confronted, affirming that it poses challenges to the defense of human dignity, justice and work.
Identification with Pope Francis
Leo referred to the AI by explaining the choice of his name: his namesake, Pope Leo XIII, was the Pope from 1878 to 1903 and laid the foundations for modern Catholic social thinking. He did it the most famous with his rerum Novarum encyclical in 1891, which approached workers’ rights and capitalism at the dawn of the industrial era. The late Pope criticized both the capitalism of a faire and socialism centered on the state, giving the form of a clearly Catholic vein of economic education.
In his remarks on Saturday, Leo said that he had identified himself with his predecessor, which was addressed to the big social question of the day posed by the industrial revolution in the encyclical.
“In our time, the Church offers all the treasure of its social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and developments in the field of artificial intelligence which poses new challenges for the defense of human dignity, justice and work,” he said.
Towards the end of his pontificate, Francis has expressed more and more on the threats to humanity posed by AI and called on an international treaty to regulate it. He warned that such powerful technological risks transforming human relationships into simple algorithms. Francis transmitted his message to the group of seven industrialized countries when he approached their summit last year, the insistence of AI must remain centered on man so that decisions at the time of using weapons or even fewer fatal tools are still taken by humans and not machines.
The late Argentinian pope also used his annual annual message of the 2024 annual peace to call for an international treaty to ensure that AI is developed and used ethically, arguing that a technology without human values of compassion, mercy, morality and forgiveness is too perilous to develop without control.
Francis saw in many ways the original Augustinian missionary of Chicago, Robert Prevost, like an apparent heir: he pushed him to take over a small Peruvian diocese in 2014, where Prévost later became bishop and chief of the Conference of Bishops of the Vatican, then called it to Rome for 2023.
The Vatican revealed on Saturday that Leo would keep the motto and the coat of arms he had as a bishop of Chiclayo, Peru. The motto, “in illelo unum”, was pronounced by Saint-Augustin in a sermon to explain that “although we Christians are numerous, in one of the Christ, we are one”.
In the speech, pronounced in Italian in the Vatican Synod room – not the apostolic palace – Leo made repeated references to Francis and mourning on his death. He resisted Francis’ mission statement in 2013, “the joy of the Gospel”, as something of his own walking orders.
He cited Francis’ insistence on the missionary nature of the Church and the need to make his leadership more collegial. He cited the need to pay attention to the fact that the faithful say “in particular in its most authentic and inclusive forms, especially popular piety”.
Once again, referring to Francis’ mission statement in 2013, Leo quoted the need for the Church to express the “affectionate care to say the least and the least rejected” and to initiate a courageous dialogue with the contemporary world.
A quick conclave
Welcomed by a standing ovation, Leo read his prepared text, looking up only from time to time. Even when he appeared for the first time in the world on Thursday evening, Leo read a prepared and handwritten text that he had to recover one day before his historic elections or the time approximately. He seemed most comfortable to talk out of the fact in the few words he said in Spanish.
Prévost was elected 267th pontiff Thursday during the fourth voting of the Conclave, an exceptionally rapid result since it was the largest and most geographically diverse conclave in history and all the cardinals did not know each other before arriving in Rome.
The cardinals said that Prévost had made no major speeches during pre-contractual discussions, and he carried the traditional taboo in the United States in the Conclave, given the status of American superpower. But Prevost was already known by many.
They said he had made an impression in small groups where English was the key language of communication in a conclave which brought together 133 cardinals from 70 countries.
Cardinal Madagascar, the desired Tsarahazana, told journalists on Saturday that during the final ballot, Prevost had received “more” than 100 votes. This suggests an extraordinary margin, far beyond two thirds, or 89 votes, necessary to be elected.
A comment from a competitor
Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Secretary of State of the Vatican who had been considered one of the best candidates for his pope, congratulated on Saturday in a letter published in his newspaper of the hometown, he Giornale di Vicenza.
Parolin praised Leo’s understanding of today’s problems, recalling his first words of Loggia when he talked about the need for a peace which is “disarmed and disarmed”. Parolin said that he had appreciated the leadership of Prevost in Chiclayo, saying that he had helped manage a particularly thorny problem – without details – and grew up to appreciate his governance more closely in the Vatican who takes care of the bishop’s office.
More specifically, the Paroline praised the understanding of Leo of people and situations, its “calm in argumentation, balance in the proposal of solutions, respect, care and love for everyone”.
Support PBS News Hour
Your tax deductible donation guarantees that our vital reports continue to prosper.
