Reflections on the Pope’s Message for the 59th World Communications Day
The Holy Father’s message of January 24, 2025, marking the 59th World Communications Day and opening the Communication Jubilee, offers both spiritual and practical guidance in an era marked by technological and social contradictions.
As communicators, we question the role that Artificial Intelligence can play in mass communications, recognizing that it is not just a tool: it is a language, a meeting place, and sometimes, unfortunately, even a battlefield.
Pope Francis highlights how today “few centers of power control an unprecedented mass of data,” generating disinformation and polarization. This observation directly touches on AI, often used to amplify divisive content. Nevertheless, we must not limit ourselves to denouncing its risks, but rather transform the communicator’s mission into an act of faith and responsibility, assuming the new role of “communicators of hope.”
The Pope strongly emphasizes the need to “disarm communication,” purifying it from aggression: “Too often today, communication generates not hope, but fear and despair, prejudice and resentment, fanaticism and even hatred […] it uses words as blades.” In this scenario, AI can be both a weapon and an antidote. It’s a fact that social media algorithms, designed to maximize engagement, often favor polarizing content, reducing complexity to slogans. As Francis notes: “Reducing reality to slogans never bears good fruit.”
However, AI could be reoriented to promote gentle communication. Automated moderation tools, inspired by ethical criteria, could filter hate speech, while recommendation systems could promote stories of solidarity. The Pope quotes Don Tonino Bello: “All conflicts find their roots in the dissolution of faces.” AI, if designed with proximity in mind, could restore face and dignity to people, countering toxic anonymity. For example, platforms using AI to connect migrants with welcoming communities, or to share testimonies of reconciliation, would embody the vision of communication “woven with gentleness.”
Francis defines hope as a “community project,” citing the Jubilee as an invitation to “walk together.” Today, however, AI risks further fragmenting relationships: “The programmed dispersion of attention […] modifies our perception of reality […] undermines the foundations of our being community.” Algorithms that segment users into information bubbles fuel the atomization of interests. As communicators, we can respond by using AI to build bridges. For example, automatic translation tools that overcome language barriers, or platforms that map global social initiatives, making visible the good “hidden in the folds of news.”
The Pope invites us to imitate “gold seekers,” sifting through sand to find “seeds of hope.” AI, trained to identify constructive narratives, could help communicators discover these “sparks of good,” like stories of mothers praying for children in war or children smiling among ruins.
A central passage of the message warns against “diseases of protagonism and self-referentiality.” AI, if reduced to a tool for self-promotion or manipulation, betrays its vocation: “The good communicator enables listeners to […] rediscover the best part of themselves.” Chatbots and deepfakes, for instance, risk replacing authenticity with artifice, emptying communication of empathy. Francis reminds us that Christians are called to “reflect the beauty of God’s love” before even speaking about it. Similarly, AI should serve as a witness, not a performance. A positive example? Projects like AI used by Catholic organizations to analyze social needs and direct resources, or systems helping rural communities share their wisdom. Here, technology becomes a tool for listening, not another support for more persuasive monologue.
The Pope urges us to “not forget the heart,” meaning our inner life. For a Catholic, this implies constant discernment about technologies: “Making space for trust of the heart which, like a delicate but resilient flower, does not succumb to bad weather.”
AI raises enormous ethical dilemmas: from mass surveillance to reducing people to data. Francis recalls that Christian hope is “a performative virtue, capable of changing life” (citing his predecessor Benedict XVI’s encyclical Spe salvi). Applying this to technology means designing systems that respect dignity, promote justice, and leave room for the Spirit’s unpredictability.
The message closes with a powerful image: communicators as “pilgrims of hope.” For those working with AI, this means embracing an incarnated technology that doesn’t flee from human complexity but embraces it with gentleness. Francis quotes Martin Luther King: “If I can help somebody as I pass along […] then my living shall not be in vain.” Every AI tool should be evaluated in light of this question: does it help lift someone up? Gladden a heart? Make hearts burn, like Jesus with the disciples of Emmaus?
In a world where AI can both dehumanize and elevate, the communicator’s task is to collaborate in a digital renaissance where technology serves hope. As the Pope writes: “A communication that helps us recognize the dignity of every human being and care together for our common home.” This message takes on even more impact as it’s formulated in the Jubilee year, an invitation to cross the “Door” of technology with discernment, so that AI isn’t an idol but a bridge to others.
Ultimately, not a condemnation of technology, but an invitation to baptize it, to make it an instrument of communion. In an era where AI risks becoming the new golden calf of power, it’s a call to us communicators to be prophets of a human, gentle, and hopeful use of these tools. Hope is “a risk that must be taken.” And in this risk, guided by faith, we find our most authentic vocation.
