The pope’s message on AI is breaking through in Silicon Valley and beyond

Get RNS’ thoughtful, essential religion reporting every morning. Sign up for free!

(RNS) — In the past week, we have witnessed the in-breaking of the Holy Spirit in the Catholic Church. Young people, in particular, are publicly on fire for the faith: from the streets of Paris for the papal visit, to the stadiums of St. Louis for the beatification of Archbishop Sheen, to processions on Notre Dame’s campus marking that school’s consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

But there is another way in which the Holy Spirit is moving in the Church — and it is through Pope Leo’s encyclical “Magnifica Humanitas.” Only four-and-a-half months after its promulgation in May, it is breaking through in extraordinary ways.

Papal encyclicals, even those concerning Church institutions, are often ignored as academic and esoteric documents. But with Leo’s inaugural encyclical, the Church has embraced “Magnifica Humanitas” ’ application of Catholic teaching to the rapidly expanding industry of artificial intelligence. Bishops’ conferences from Australia to Ireland to Chile responded with plans based on its teachings almost immediately. Closer to home, the U.S. Bishops built their Labor Day…