An early focus of the pontificate of Leo XIV, artificial intelligence (AI) will be the central topic of discussion as parish leaders gather for the Combined Vicariates meeting at the Diocesan Pastoral Center on February 26.
The meeting will bring together parish pastors, directors of religious education, youth ministers and Catholic school principals from both the San Bernardino and Riverside pastoral regions. It will also be livestreamed on the diocesan YouTube channel so that all parish and Catholic school leaders and staff have an opportunity to participate.
Father Rick Manalo, CSP, a Paulist priest, composer, theologian and missionary will give the morning keynote address. Fr. Manalo, currently a professor at Santa Clara University, is familiar to many in the diocese through his ministry in liturgical music and appearances at the LA Religious Education Congress. In 2019 he came to the Pastoral Center as a keynote speaker for Asian Pacific Islander Day.
But in recent years, Fr. Manalo has also become a leading voice and thought leader in the Catholic Church’s reflection on AI. He wrote the forward to Antiqua et Nova, the doctrinal Note on the Relationship Between Artificial Intelligence and Human Intelligence, released a year ago by the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and Dicastery for Culture and Education.
“There is broad consensus that AI marks a new and significant phase in humanity’s engagement with technology,” Fr. Manalo writes in the introduction to Antiqua et Nova. “It raises fundamental questions about ethical responsibility and human safety. This new situation has prompted many people to reflect on what it means to be human and the role of humanity in the world.”
In the afternoon, members of a diocesan committee that formed late last year to create guidelines for local use of AI will lead a discussion panel that will share different ways that AI is already being used here. Some examples of use will include Catholic schools, social concerns ministry, media content creation and administrative/clerical work.