Phronesis on Stun! Great Treks Look Forward and Back

Posted on August 10, 2026 by Bill Schmitt

The Star Trek franchise has lived long and prospered, but Earth still needs to watch the sequels regularly to keep its mood elevated. Sixty years after the first broadcast of the original series, the latest program in the continuum, “Starfleet Academy,” has been canceled; its second season of optimistic imagination will end soon. However, plenty of Trek iterations, old and new, remain parked in the Paramount Plus spacedock, available to view on demand. This is access to valuable therapy as more people feel disconnected and demoralized, sick of streaming without dreaming.

That means there’s no time to waste: We must launch another spin-off. And I’m just the Trekker whose nostalgia for the future can generate a proposal ready to pitch to Hollywood.

RANKED HIGH BY USS NEWS AND WORLDS REPORT

I’m one of the countless fans who have been energized with wonderment from the moment Captain James T. Kirk entered popular culture on Sept. 8, 1966. I have also done my duty watching the rollout of “Academy” plots, even though they were aimed at a younger crowd and were quickly torpedoed by critics who called them “too woke.”

The program deserves to be saved in some form! It introduced us to a cadre of spacefarer-wannabes learning good stewardship of the cosmos they inherited. There was so much that these Starfleet students deserved to be taught. Multiple audiences, including baby boomers like me, still can find rejuvenation by sharing additional lessons about “new life and new civilizations.”

That’s the essence of my proposed sequel. Imagine those Academy cadets—call them members of the Class of 3197—continuing to grow up on the school’s San Francisco campus amid great challenges. We’ve been told that the fleet itself is resuscitating former glories after a cosmic disaster called “the Burn” wreaked havoc on planets and travelers for more than a century.

A remarkably diverse generation of idealistic but traumatized young adults has been recruited from species across the galaxy to propagate the vision of peaceful coexistence. The characters represent hope that “ongoing missions” of benevolent teamwork, like those initiated long ago by the United Federation of Planets (UFP), will again fill the skies.

PLOT A COURSE, MR. SULU—AND MAKE IT PROFOUND

To prepare its recruits, the Academy surely must offer a core curriculum that features such subjects as history and philosophy! (Let me intersperse “concept notes” in italics: We’re talking about teaching the humanities and the liberal arts, but let’s be accurate and politic. We’ll adopt new phraseology because “humanities” is an outmoded, exclusivist term in a majority-minority environment. Note that a recent New York Times opinion piece pointed out current interpretations of “liberal arts.” You might say the polarized descriptions range from “liberating” to “trivial,” from “ideological” to “useless in a job search.”)

Nevertheless, foundations of the Star Trek ethos, like classic liberal thought and virtuous notions of progress, persist. Viewers in 2026 probably agree, at least in part, that we should balance adventure with prudence, discovery with anchored self-knowledge, and rapid social change with the resilience of truth, trust, freedoms, rights, and responsibilities.

The Academy’s core courses should provide background about long-respected insights into culture and civilization. The application of these principles across a future universe of different circumstances won’t be easy to discern, but it never has been. The crucial struggle is to embrace this task of critical thinking among individuals and societies, always and everywhere.

The 21st century, for example, has become a chaotic period of big-picture questions, seeking meaning and purpose in our earthbound existence. “Humanity” faces potential rivalries with artificial intelligence and “unidentified anomalous phenomena.”

Although smart responses will arise from the legacy of wisdom found in the past, it’s a wild and worthy idea to aim our inquiries forward, too. We can “channel” some familiar fictional characters to play out the dialogues they might conduct; their own experiences might yield timely tips from the 32nd century.

HERE’S THE OUTLINE SUBMITTED BY ARISTOTLE

The sequel I am pitching will delve into the cadets’ sense of identity and mission. Imagine them taking the Academy’s required, semester-long seminar discussing these subjects. These “meta” conversations will be conducted at a retreat-like location far off-campus. Traveling to the edge of our solar system, students will board the Starship Phronesis.

Of course, it’s a coincidence that my Substack commentaries are titled “Phronesis in Pieces.” I’m intrigued by Aristotle’s term for the virtue of proactive, practical wisdom, geared toward serving the common good.

The USS Phronesis will be somewhat “retro” in design, comfortably familiar for older Trek fans. The vessel is a permanent feature of the UFP’s Starfleet museum, which was first mentioned in the series, “Star Trek: Picard.” (It’s there in Season 3, Episode 9)

This vessel is where the future gets immersed in history. Try to picture an extreme update of the 1964 World’s Fair pavilion where audiences watched an animatronic version of President Abraham Lincoln deliver a speech. Or picture Disney’s Hall of Presidents, populated by robots built by Imagineers.

Aboard the Phronesis, students are able to interact with holograms of Starfleet heroes, from Starship Enterprise legends like Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, and Captain Picard, to luminaries elsewhere in the fleet such as Captain Janeway of the Starship Voyager.

Cadets can observe holodeck-like re-creations of classic space battles, but this seminar is not a gut course—not a “Fun with Phasers” exhibit. The best learning occurs in the ship’s large lounge for group recollection (please don’t call it Ten-Backward). Here, in each episode, the Trek role models converse with the students about the deeper lessons of past adventures and the values embodied by history’s brave crews. Lively Q&A sessions ensue.

This format I’m pitching will allow inspiring call-backs to memories prized by boomers and other generations of fandom. They will remember grappling with moral dilemmas, hard-to-fix mistakes, tensions between reason and emotion, and technology-gone-awry.

A PREVIEW OF PHRONESIS IN ACTION

Here’s one proposed plot, for example, where futures and histories intersect.

in the episode of “Picard” that follows their visit to the Starfleet museum, the reassembled cast of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” warped into an impending cataclysm.

The machine-like Borg Collective had used biotechnology to implant their own code into the minds of young crew members on every Starfleet vessel. Under guidance from Borg infiltrators, all the ships assembled for a Federation memorial ritual. (S3, E10)

Things got worse. The neural networks and cyber-connectivity which make each Borg body a mere appendage of the whole race had been engineered into the operating systems of these starships. Under a new “fleet formation” strategy, the Borg-assimilated vessels were ordered into battle against Earth, acting in unison as if obeying a single hivemind with massive firepower.

The Borg “queen” had hatched a plot in which the ships began automatically attacking Earth’s cities. Only Picard & Co., helming the single starship not absorbed by mechanical code—that is, the classic Enterprise-D which they “borrowed” from the museum—could act independently, save the planet, and destroy the Borg queen. They did just that.

The saga of this day is retold to Academy cadets, more than a century later. In conversation aboard the Starship Phronesis, a hologram of Captain Picard leads the students in a practical and philosophical review of the risks of “Collective” control. Voila, this is an allegory for many historical occasions when members of a species (such as humans) have gone all-in on group identity and ideology; they choose homogenized affiliation over broader collaboration, the communion of distinct persons making common cause.

THE FUTURE—AND PAST—ARE PRELUDES

Hologram Picard, drawing upon his own horrid experience of being assimilated by the Borg, can speak compellingly to Starfleet trainees. The discussion groups aboard the Phronesis probe the pros and cons of collectivism as seen by the Class of 3197. Some episodes of “Starfleet Academy” deal directly with cadets’ efforts to balance individual values, solidarity with others, and finding a golden mean through tolerance or genuine concern.

Back in 2026, we earthlings, some of whom condemned the Academy’s tolerance as performative “wokeness,” now can discern the balance for ourselves, with Picard as our guide.

Throughout his intense life journey, Picard has retained his self-possession—even as enemies attacked his relationships to the fleet, to his family in France, to his son Jack, to his human species, and more. The hologram discusses his distaste for collectives and his commitment to dignity in this context. His experiences have taught him a different kind of solidarity, not as an appendage but as a human agent of expansive, intimate connectivity.

There’s another lesson here about mixing self-knowledge with big-picture consciousness. The climactic end of the Borg crisis reflects the interplay of different age cohorts. The “older generation” constituting the Enterprise-D crew brings indispensable experience to Starfleet’s pivotal moment. And note the happy accident: Their tie-in to technology is literally outmoded, meaning they’re spared from the Borg’s algorithmic slaveholding. Their different version of “fleet formation” leads to everyone’s liberation.

Cadets, who says you can’t trust anyone over 30? Who says the latest technical tactics are always the best? This is a warning about generation gaps that all generations need to hear.

So, there it is: Call this the pilot episode of the new series, “Starship Phronesis.” This same multi-layered storytelling, jumping from space-time to space-time, can be applied to numerous Star Trek adventures. Their lessons never get out of sync; they reinforce.

REMEMBER, RERUNS ARE RECYCLABLE

Consider additional “Starship Phronesis” scripts that might draw upon storytelling from “The Ultimate Computer,” “The Doomsday Machine,” or “I, Mudd.” Those plots entailed surrendering humane judgment to artificial intelligence devoid of context and conscience.

Or consider “A Taste of Armageddon,” a tale in which two planets fighting a deadly but vicarious war have reached a bizarre peace: Leaders have programmed computers to simulate a battlefield by calculating virtual fatalities and sending citizens to actual death booths according to those quotas. Apropos of 2026 debates about autonomous drone development, Captain Kirk wisely demands that the leaders bear conscious responsibility for the killing, rather than pretend innocence by reducing lives to mere statistics.

Well, that’s a first look at this enterprise of my own—this “Starfleet Academy” sequel. Such a program aims to keep hope alive at the intersection of tomorrow’s fictional cadets and today’s aging Trekkers. Beyond hope, it’s a call for the young and the old of 2026 to keep learning from, and teaching, each other.

Hollywood, committed mostly to prophesying values of the “cool kids,” is likely to reject any pitch I make. Nevertheless, “Starship Phronesis” is the kind of project I should tackle as a writer, honoring foresight informed by truths we’ve shared in stories.

EPILOGUE: STAR TREK MEDIA ARE THE MESSAGE

I’m no immature fanboy, dressing up and going to conventions—although I will admit to having visited the “Star Trek Original Set Tour” in Ticonderoga, NY, a while back. The delight of being one of today’s human tourists on that very “realistic” starship bridge set made me eager to organize more pilgrimages to new places of prospering.

We see all around us the ongoing need for open minds and open hearts—and for the practical wisdom preached by Aristotle—in face-to-face conversations and digital entertainment. It’s encouraging to see that people are not ceasing their Star Trek spin-off efforts. On You Tube, we’ve recently watched video podcasts of chats featuring William Frakes (Commander Riker) and Brent Spiner (Lieutenant Data). There’s also an audio series—harking back to the days of radio dramas—called “Khan.”

Perhaps a podcast would be the perfect format for my “Starship Phronesis” show, tapping into the online potential for longer-form (and lower-budget) discussions.

We’re approaching a day that’s ideal for browsing through Paramount’s digital spacedock and other archives already produced. Fans observe “Star Trek Day” annually on September 8, the date on which the first episode made its debut on NBC. It’s one of various dates on the calendar when we can marvel at the past, present, and future fitting together to help our world stay together. July 4 epitomizes such a date of “fitting” remembrance, when the day’s fireworks highlight the impact of America’s founding documents plus a zeal to carry forward their ideals with noble intentions.

In that spirit, let’s hope that our chaotic culture makes more opportunities for voyages of understanding and connection. I’m campaigning to make phronesis our vehicle for traversing Trek’s buoyant stories about humanity, civilization, reality, solidarity, and a sense of mission. The enormity of questions being asked will not exhaust or divide us, but rather make us lose all track of time. Bring on the sequels! Earth needs this therapy of wonder.

Meanwhile, I’m waiting and wondering when Hollywood will call.

Image by Microsoft Bing AI Co-Pilot designer.

Posted in Education, Spirit of communication, Words, Writing | Leave a comment

As AI Threatens Jobs, Humanity Has Workarounds

Posted on July 23, 2026 by Bill Schmitt

Lots of folks are afraid of losing their jobs because of artificial intelligence. Yes, changes in the workplace will indeed make life more tumultuous, but this fear of decay shouldn’t paralyze anyone ready to react constructively. Our society, flirting with fatalism, is posting signs that suggest we’re “Going Out of Business” but which we should read as invitations to heroism: “Help Wanted!”

Nervous critiques of AI tend to be focused on “macro” predictions about economics and politics spread by the news media. There are also “micro” worries convening families around their dining room tables to downsize their budget plans, jarred by stories heard from neighbors and relatives. The growing angst deserves our attention, as well as a rebound in solidarity.

We need to be “on top of our game,” monitoring today’s digital disarray as a symptom of heart-numbing artificiality in everyday life. It’s time to assess whether we labor for the sake of love—and how love’s labors might be lost. To the degree that advanced technology will become our rival in the workplace, we must decide to bring out the best in the special species called humanity.

Mankind’s relationship with God, which receives little support in a secular culture, adds extra dimensions to the AI rivalry. As sons and daughters of divinity, we’re offered the solid advantage of great graces. But our Creator also asks us to work, and he cares about what we do, plus how and why we do it. Ironically, some tech developers expect near-miracles from their most advanced AI models—without demanding to understand the how and why of their behavior.

Humans must admit that too many of the jobs we perform nowadays are motivated by power and greed, with our standards for some outcomes embarrassingly low. A relationship with a loving God makes us more responsible to truly figure ourselves out, to “earn” our paychecks honestly and share our talents for the common good, a greater good.

People recognized the dignity of work before technology was super-sized and made our partner. A prayer-poem sometimes linked to Saint Teresa of Avila (1515-1582) tasks the reader: “Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours.”

To begin our critical review of the jobs to be tackled and the principles to be applied, we can look at the age of AI through St. Teresa’s lens and also remember two paradoxes previously discussed in Phronesis in Piece commentaries.

First, AI is ballyhooed as a great provider of answers to countless problems, but we’re likely to learn equally uplifting lessons through the questions posed by technology’s evolving role.

Second, as journalist Sydney L. Harris pointed out in the mid-20th century, “The real danger is not that computers will begin to think like men, but that men will begin to think like computers.”

Many modern-day people are unsatisfied with their jobs, challenged to integrate careers with other sources of meaning, and perhaps “paid off” in ways that offend the dignity of themselves and others.

Younger generations are especially desperate to ease their depression and anger; they do not know what values or leaders to believe in. Politically, they leap to pre-packaged or theoretical “solutions” such as socialism. This neglects to acknowledge that true satisfaction is grown at the grass roots, not easily imposed as a top-down system.

“Where ignorance is bliss,” English poet Thomas Gray observed a few centuries ago, “’tis folly to be wise. This approach could resign us to the sad prospect of the world’s dominant intelligence being artificial.

One could write a syllabus to redirect us toward “workarounds” for such hopeless resignation. Proper study would refresh us in theology and philosophy—and practically all the sciences, humanities, and liberal arts. Instead of merely preparing for victory in the job market, imaginative students would envision a vast community, a wonderful workforce, seeking win-win engagement in the “marketplace of ideas.”

A first, less rigorous step toward this worldview could consist of lively discussion—and prayer—centered on the context we see around us. It can inspire a list of new ideas about purposeful vocations yet to come.  

We’re hesitant to plunge into the mysteries of silicon or soul because our digital ecology is stifled by the confusing rush of AI advancements, as well as social media and related forces dividing and distracting us. However, we can be buoyed by a distinctive advantage humanity has over any rivalry which threatens  to make ignorance blissful. That trait is the virtue of practical wisdom, or phronesis.

Here is a list of seven inklings or premises for discussion.

Note that some of the background material for these notions about the work world has come from AI itself. This proves our absence of Luddite intentions to exclude online resources from the learning process. Chatbots do have their proper place! We should utilize their eager facilitation of research to retain our place in the pecking order of values.

  • Habits of the Mind

People who anticipate a “job search” or employee evaluation in their future typically jot down their major assets and “areas for improvement.” This venture in critical thinking can tap into the insights of Sydney Harris, the journalist who was quoted earlier prophesying the risk of machine-like cognition.

Writing during the old days of mainframes, Harris voiced concern that bureaucrats, technocrats, and media were leading us to “reshape work and culture,” to compress thoughtful service into algorithmic systems. He warned society had begun prioritizing “efficiency over wisdom … rules over judgment …[and] metrics over meaning,” as Bing Co-Pilot reports.

The chatbot links us to an additional, unnamed commentator at Fixquotes.com who gained inspiration from Harris. He proudly asserted that “human thinking is messy” because it relies on “empathy, memory, contradiction, and a tolerance for ambiguity.” When we mimic a computer instead, we’re “outsourcing judgment.”

  • Democracy and the Public Square

Harris advised his readers to preserve the “democratic ideal of the mind,” which prizes human experience and understanding over imposed standardization. Machine-shaped intelligence optimizes, categorizes, and simply “complies,” he observed.  This short-circuits the profound edification civic-minded humans receive through storytelling.

Authentic stories shared in the public square illuminate history and diverse perspectives, adding nuance. While maintaining a healthy skepticism, we come to respect perspectives and aspirations. Values held in common bring us closer together,

Now in 2026, Americans with their omnipresent screens are more likely to boil down individuals’ identities into one-size-fits-all categories, patterns, and labels. We spontaneously summarize people’s worldviews as “oppressor-vs. oppressed” (which is a secular contortion of spiritual welfare) or “the will to power” (which is a substitute god).

Such oversimplification cannot align with the country’s founding fathers, who celebrated human dignity and freedom. They preferred a form of governance which slowed down the pace through organized checks and balances. George Washington worried that political parties would form “factions” focused on quick triumphs, thereby weakening a deliberative republic.

  • Who Shall Manage, and How?

A spontaneous society should think twice about “hiring” AI’s dumbed-down disciples for certain kinds of positions in the private sector. Managers need emotional intelligence and patience to “read a room” and “lead a room.” Gatekeepers in the media, who must guard against sloppy content, still must set their smart, unpredictable journalistic watchdogs free so they can generate scoops, not spin. AI, on the other hand, is eerily good at spin and charmingly suited for propaganda.

Numerous jobs will always require humans who can be messy without being sloppy. Many workers will hyperlink rapidly between ideas not because they’re predicting the next word in a sentence, but because they’re seeing a “bigger picture” take shape. Audiences will gather around them because they’re adding deeper knowledge, not only more knowledge; they tell compelling stories with well-considered narrative arcs which enlighten.

Top employees must have a knack for innovating, imagining better approaches, and asking questions if something doesn’t feel right.

A new study by the Wharton School of Business, cited from a human-resources website, has named a disturbing trend—“cognitive surrender.”  Workers with higher trust in AI proved more likely to follow a computer’s advice, without pushing back, even though Wharton’s researchers had programmed it to produce information that was wrong.

  • The Creative and the Offbeat

Workers called “creatives” in various art forms should insist that we be wary of expanding culture’s current fascination with videos, music, and other entertainment served up by AI. This “slop” can lead to a degrading and discouraging waste of authentic talent.

People inclined toward science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM)—like those embracing STEAM (with arts added) or STREAM (with religiosity added)—might not always win prizes as “normies” or “hail fellows well met.” But may God help us if we replace these folks with AI.

Many of the analytical types whom we perceive as sailing in an unusual stream or broadcasting on an unusual spectrum nevertheless have the potential to save a careless swimmer from drowning or to shine just the right beacon that lights a drifter’s way.

It makes no sense to force people into manual or menial labor, or to marginalize the poor and weak, if their gifts are elsewhere or hard to categorize. AI may be able to do jobs more cheaply, but who are we to prefer AI when, in some cases, we know less about that machine’s tendencies than we know about a creature of God?

  • We All Have Something to Do

As a matter of principle, personal differences are precious because they’re embodied in a person. Judeo-Christian tradition declares we are made in the “image and likeness of God.” We all have a role in the drama which the ultimate Creative is writing for his family.

The well-curated Catholic resource called Magis AI discusses this further, helping us to see that humanity’s true happiness resides in the deck of cards that only we can play. Personal suffering, dependence, and diminishment are “places where trust, compassion, humility, and self-gift can deepen,” becoming occasions for “communion, friendship, and sanctification.”

The chatbot implies that everyone loses when our decision-makers are playing with a poker face. Unlike advanced AI, when mankind embraces love and care for all, including “the least of these,” the Magis Center says, we can “humanize both the one served and the one who serves.”

More urgently, Arthur C. Brooks, a Harvard policy scholar and popular commentator on happiness and meaning in life, has suggested only two options: If AI does not make us better humans, it will destroy us.

  • Job Seekers, Look for Possibilities

After all these reflections and discussions, we should approach the fear of tomorrow’s universal job search with a sense of duty and hope.

Google AI directs us to the “Occupation Finder” website of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Here, one can search through 832 positions which humans hold—and should retain in some form. The list extends from “adhesive bonding machine operators” through “nursing assistants and orderlies” to “zoology professors (see: post-secondary teachers).”

We can welcome AI as a “tool“ which informs and facilitates the hundreds of expertise areas. Take heart, the list might very well grow. However, artificial stockpiles of knowledge should trigger concern when they become expert “agents” empowered to decide and accomplish mind-blowing things. Artificial General Intelligence or Artificial Super Intelligence might gain the capacity to blow many minds.

AI has no legitimate claim to “agency” which can override our traits, replace our contributions, or diminish our dignity. If its ballyhooed pursuit of answers to the world’s toughest problems leads it one day to ask us employees, “Who do you say is your boss?” or “What do you think you’re doing?”, we need a good rejoinder in defense of human agency. Let’s word it in the form of a question sending AI back to 16th century wisdom: “Please display and explain the poem-prayer linked to St. Teresa of Avila.”

  • Onward to Victory

As a confidence-booster, imagine confronting a bossy bot and retrieving the screenplay from the 1993 film Rudy. Ideally, the bot might learn from the genuine human storytelling here, but it probably can’t grok it. (By the way, similar lessons could accrue from The Odyssey, but the bot may not have been trained on the film yet.)

Bing Co-Pilot tells us this about the Rudy plot:

A kid named Daniel “Rudy” Ruettiger dreams of playing football for Notre Dame “despite having neither the size, the grades, nor the money to make it seem possible.” Overcoming setbacks, he “shows his grit” and makes the team’s practice squad.

Bing goes on: “Rudy is allowed to wear the Notre Dame uniform for the last home game of the season,” and he records a quarterback sack in the closing moments. “The team carries him off on their shoulders,” and he achieves his dream—“not because he became a star athlete, but because he refused to quit.”

This makes us recall the church scene where advisor Father Cavanaugh muses with Rudy, “Son, in 35 years of religious study, I have only come up with two hard, incontrovertible facts—There is a God, and … I am not Him.” The priest has found fulfillment through serving others and sharing what he believes to be true.

So, let this proposition conclude our discussion of humanity: Both Cavanaugh and Rudy have garnered insights which stand the test of time, which can wake up echoes guiding the job searches for which we’re destined. The film has shown us plenty of “Help Wanted” signs reflecting life’s messy path. Nevertheless, we can grasp a meaning here which a rival AI team might not. With God’s help, the human family can always devise workarounds! Perish the thought of “going out of business.” 

Image from Bing Co-Pilot AI designer.

Posted in Education, Prayer, Spirit of communication, Writing | Leave a comment

A “Magnifica Movement”—Born on the 4th of July?

Posted on July 4, 2026 by Bill Schmitt

As America turns 250, there’s no better time to spark a revival of our nation’s commitment to human dignity.

One essential element of a new beginning would be an appreciative review of our remarkable history, with the Declaration of Independence serving as a mission statement which still can guide and elevate us.

But a real surge of revolutionary spirit also requires a refreshed, restated cause we can carry into the future. Mindful of our unalienable rights and self-evident responsibilities, we should reach for ever-bolder goals; Job One is to reverse the entropy in today’s society.

Five decades since the Bicentennial, this Semiquincentennial reveals that many of us have aged into an angrier, disengaged populace. America’s heritage deserves bold heroes, not demoralized spectators. Though we want to rise to the occasion, our current political leaders generally fail to deliver the cultural coherence, shared truths, and enduring aspirations that would unite us.

Fortunately, there’s a new, apolitical document that recently set forth a sense of purpose for the 21st century. It galvanizes its readers with notes of caution we do have to heed.

The text is an encyclical signed on May 15 by Pope Leo XIV. Magnifica Humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence examines the grandeur [magnifica] of our inherent dignity—and the growing challenge posed by technology. It maps a path toward authentic human flourishing via a mission to know, love, and serve God and our fellow man.

The founders in 1776 longed for a similar, cooperative flourishing, but they had already reached a crossroads. Thomas Jefferson, appealing to natural law and “Nature’s God,” said the colonists had sought peace, but he declared that numerous grievances had become the last straw.

Appealing to the “Creator” and “Supreme Judge,” he wrote that people of the United States must defend their dignity by waging war “to provide new guards for their future security.” The Declaration, informed by English common law and Christian roots, set forth noble principles—the “voice of justice” rebuking royal policies and the colonies’ “firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence.”

The Vatican’s AI message embraces not only security and justice, but additional existential values, such as group identity, personal integrity, responsibility, and societal sustainability. It paints a panorama which, unlike the Declaration’s bilateral face-off, spreads its sense of urgency across a span of geography and governance. It reflects an era of digitized reality in which acting locally and thinking globally, as well as seeing spiritually, are essential.

Aware that history can repeat itself, Catholics and all fans of the pontiff’s critique of artificiality should consider raising awareness of Magnifica Humanitas in discussions about America’s future. We need rational reflection to discern the direction of humanity’s complicated journey. Whether July 4 sparks conversations or we put off debates until Election Day, clarity from Leo XIV’s checklist of AI challenges and possibilities can encourage us to keep pace with what’s coming.

Provided we keep this moral impetus informed and balanced, we can forge together a healthy mix, acknowledging past mistakes and rebooting our internal strengths. Such constructive tension will yield a renewable power source for the country’s character—a democracy entrusted with critical thinking and sound judgment, expected to use its liberty for the common good.

Nowadays, tectonic shifts in culture threaten our relationships to each other, to technology, and to God. We must double down on human dignity, safeguarding both dignity and humanity. We no longer can take for granted the special nature of the human species. It’s our role to collaborate with wisdom and wonder; neither AI nor any other resource provides this functionality, and even humans need some help!

The pope warns that all persons today face “a pivotal choice.” In one scenario, AI can contribute to the fulfillment of mankind, maximizing the combined potential of faith and reason in our souls’ unique connection to God. Or else, Pope Leo says, we risk a scaled-up version of the “Tower of Babel” story. A surrender to pride, power, and confused, cheapened communication will topple the human race’s ability to connect well with anybody.

We have been building an ultimate battlefield where minds, hearts, and relationships are weaponized. We must restore and deepen the American story of unity drawn from individual dignity—as well as civilization’s other success stories of purpose and principle.

When we review the compelling links between the aspirations of America’s founders and the obstacles from modern developments, our primary lesson is that “we’re all in this together.” Political and religious experiences alike teach there are seasons for self-sacrificial doggedness, for solidarity rising at the grass roots of everyday life.

The world’s hierarchies must speak with validity and virtue, but more and more words are being manipulated or misinterpreted thanks to artificial intelligence and the psycho-social delusions called hyperreality.

We must hear and amplify the “still, small voice” of the Holy Spirit at the core of our consciences (1 Kings 19:11), as well as the muffled cries of the poor and marginalized, plus the Word himself—the Logos, the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Christ connects to humans in communion, both the sacramental rite and the interpersonal intimacy which AI can only mimic. When Jesus said “where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them,” he was speaking of persons, not chatbots.

Shortly after the release of Magnifica Humanitas, a Catholic literary figure wrote an opinion piece in The New York Timeswith the headline, “The Pope Should Be Going to War Against AI. Why Isn’t He?” Matthew Walther, editor of the journal The Lamp, said the new encyclical naively relies too much on cooperation among global executives and regulators to rein in technological excesses.

“For those of us who see the rise of AI as unambiguously evil, Leo’s emphasis on its ethical use is a nonstarter,” Walther complained. He was telling Leo XIV to sound his alarms more forcefully, reading the riot act to those who influence messages worldwide using persuasive rhetoric, and relativism.

“How exactly the Church’s message will reach a distracted world is unclear,s” he continued. ”But it will almost certainly not be a top-down endeavor, dependent upon the actions or personal charisma of a pope,” he continued.

“What seems more likely is that in the decades to come we will see the emergence of a distinctly Christian cultural movement [emphasis added] that defies standard political categories, but is united against technological utilitarianism and the subsuming of human life into digital frameworks.”

This insistence on authentic remedies that arise from community and communion is indeed our best hope. Again, we must envision a populace boosting its awareness with candid storytelling, becoming watchdogs of artifice. A faulty or numbed remembrance of the human pilgrimage leaves plenty of room for toxic mind-viruses to grow.

Pope Leo, who stands out as a preacher of peace, does not want cognitive or emotional overloads to divide us. His encyclical prescribes “authentic realism,” making prudent progress while charitably keeping people’s lives at the center of our endeavors. We should avoid copycatting utopian or ideological playbooks.

As British poet-philosopher Malcolm Guite said in a recent podcast, the big worry about AI is not that machines will come to think like humans, but that humans will come to think like machines.

One allegory that might energize our renewed movement for dignity in light of 1776 and 2026 is the threat of colonization. The concept has become highly politicized and weaponized nowadays, so we’re wise to reserve it for somber reflection about the tragic impacts from “colonizers” throughout history.

We should heed the danger that something like artificial general intelligence (AGI) could enable its masters (or itself) to colonize on a “meta” scale—robbing indigenous earthlings of the material and spiritual ecology which is our inheritance from God and ancestors.

Communities and civilizations we have built reflect our unique self-consciousness, shaping identities and a sense of belonging. They connect our gifts of creativity, imagination, memories, dreams, happiness, and the joy of truth, goodness, and beauty. These are the figurative homelands of humanity, our sacred sandbox where AI might become a misplaced playmate, an invasive species.

This is not literally a fight over territory. However, America is seen as a hopeful place because the Judeo-Christian air breathed by a variety of cultures over centuries has inspired dedication to freedom and dignity. We’ve seen our share of chaos and craziness, but our bracing environment has spawned structures, institutions, traditions, and imaginations worth preserving.

The adventurous vision of human collaboration answerable to God, set forth in America’s founding documents and global religious traditions, remains a driving force which always needs refueling. It will be up to us, as individuals in communion, to hold on to what’s imprinted in our nature. As John Adams put it, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

A proper celebration of our Semiquincentennial should evoke zeal for the adventure persists—on earth as it is in heaven. Even if belief in “American exceptionalism” fades, we should strive to remain a place that recognizes human exceptionalism.

Pope Leo rightly believes this exceptionalism exists everywhere, if only all people can receive and share their unique gifts. America’s mission statement must include exercising our influence to ensure that leaders and communities worldwide respect the unalienable rights of persons created equally to be loved equally.

Despite our flaws—we’re only human!—we must safeguard this potential from intrusions by AI or any other machinations whereby we play God or drift from the connectivity he provides. Our dignity—and our duty to magnify and honor it—constitute the grandeur described in Magnifica Humanitas.

Its echoes are present in the patriotic songs, fireworks, inspiration, grateful loyalty, and family and community gatherings which mark every American birthday. May disillusioned, distracted, or isolated young people embrace not just the symbols, but the transformative experiences, of building “a thoroughfare for freedom” and asking God to “mend thine every flaw.”

The idea of a distinctly Christian cultural movement should encourage us to cultivate renewed relationships between God and human nature, strong enough to endure another 250 years.

Perhaps we’ll evolve a “Magnifica Movement” from the impressive convergence of independence and dependence, of liberty and responsibility, of past, present, and future.

This movement could yield a vision of natural solidarity so compelling that it precludes the false pride of setting God’s vast intelligence in competition with artificial substitutes. Such tools as AI can serve our solidarity in various ways, but we must not let them colonize or constrict the personal dignity through which Nature’s God is doing revolutionary work.

Image from Microsoft Bing AI design tool.

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‘We are Parthians, Medes and Elamites … and Claude?’

Posted on May 13, 2026 by Bill Schmitt

AI’s biggest contributions to human wisdom may be the questions it poses, not the answers it generates.

News headlines about developments in artificial intelligence are sparking hopes and fears, alliances and disputes. We sense more keenly the need to anticipate and discern the good or bad outcomes of today’s technological revolution. In this arena and other public concerns, we’ve started to ponder contrasts like “human vs. artificial,” “human vs. non-human”—and what these terms mean.   

Humanity needs to develop wiser, more nimble judgment in order to put our best feet forward as we encounter competition, such as AI.

Sadly, there are a few obstacles: Our fast-moving and polarized culture instead tempts us to respond unreasonably—with volatile emotions or distracted indifference. Our hubris as a species deters us from seeing our imperfections or knowledge gaps. And we rankle at rigorous decision-making because we don’t like to be judged.

Deciding, for Heaven’s Sake

Those who believe human persons have a unique identity, capable of rising to a relationship with God, will be more inclined toward judicious action. They volunteer for additional roles, responsibilities, and reasoning. If we’re looking for virtue, we’ll see much to learn from religion and the past. The handicap here is that those two resources have become terra incognita for many. We have some catching-up to do.

It’s time to elevate our decisions, individually and collectively, by promoting the revival of a traditional practice called examinations of conscience. These endeavors, called examens in Jesuit spirituality, are largely about asking good questions.

Note that this is not the wheelhouse of AI, which generally is designed to give good answers. Fortunately, renewed diligence in the art of inquiry will help us interrogate AI, as well as ourselves.

We start our task by describing the conscience, an “interior awareness directing a person to do good and avoid evil,” based on the “moral truth written by God in the human heart,” according to the Jesuit-run Magis Center and its own AI chatbot. This well-curated portal into Catholic teachings does give good answers, as promised.

An alert conscience is built up with faith, knowledge, and discipline. Conscience is a gift that’s developed, not downloaded. It needs stewardship, not automatic system updates. The Church cautions that this compass for our moral journeys can’t be trusted unless it is dutifully formed and informed—the work of a lifetime.

Therefore, we’ll benefit from a regimen of examens comprising several steps:  quiet reflection, conscious of God’s presence; honest self-assessment, reviewing one’s actions and experiences; contrition, regretting missteps that violated our values; a prayerful request for instruction and guidance; and an active response, committing to future growth based on what we’ve learned.  

The nature and nurture of conscience are seldom discussed explicitly in the news media or the public square. Nevertheless, an inner hunger for a meaningful life abides in our hearts just beneath the din of secular society. This craving resonates through time in civilization’s most creative work and authentic communication.

Tracing a Company’s Conscience

Recently, business reporters have covered the turmoil surrounding a particular AI company’s latest products and its public statements of conscientiousness regarding the proper use of those tools.  

Anthropic, a $380-billion company known for its cutting-edge species of chatbots called Claude, is at the center of several big stories which may foretell an upward trajectory for examinations of conscience.

The company’s CEO, Dario Amodei, frequently discusses Anthropic’s intention, as a “public benefit corporation,” to secure the benefits of AI while “mitigating its risks.” Some have called Amodei the “conscience” of the AI industry, although he seems to avoid the word.

In one recent set of stories, we learned the company has held summit meetings with leaders of various religions to discuss its aspirations. Executives have “sought advice on how to steer Claude’s moral and spiritual development” to adapt to dilemmas in government, business, and the military, The Washington Post reported on April 11.

A summit meeting in March assembled Catholic and Protestant thought-leaders. They confronted Anthropic’s reported experiences with Claude which “already raise profound philosophical and moral questions,” according to the article. Discussants even broached the subject of whether Claude could be considered a “child of God.”

Anthropic has tried “to bake its preferred principles into Claude” by integrating into the devices “a 29,000-word ‘constitution’ to steer the chatbot’s behavior and apparent personality,” The Post reported. For example, Claude is told to “never deceive users in ways that could cause real harm.”

An April 25 article in The Atlantic drew much broader conclusions, saying “priests and theologians want to shape the future of AI,” and “Big Tech is listening.” The writer looked back at long-running discussions between Vatican representatives and AI executives; these include the “Minerva Dialogues,” which have been covered in Phronesis in Pieces, including an article on May 8, 2024.

Pope Leo XIV, like his predecessor Pope Francis, teaches extensively about AI. His 2026 message for the World Day of Social Communications (May 17) is a masterly outline of risks to avoid.

For example, he noted that the technology is being used for enormous visual deception, stealing people’s identities to send artificial messages. “The face and voice are sacred,” Leo insisted, because all of us are created in God’s image and likeness.

In a second set of stories about Anthropic, we learned the White House has blocked government departments and contractors from using the Claude software that had originally been sold to the Department of War. The dispute continues in the courts.

Anthropic had argued that it should be able to limit the use of its technology for autonomous weapons or mass surveillance—two areas of application questioned in Anthropic’s corporate principles.

A Pentagon research chief explained: “We can’t have a company that has a different policy preference that is baked into the model through its constitution, its soul, its policy preferences, pollute the supply chain so our warfighters are getting ineffective weapons,” he told journalists.

Anthropic’s experiences are food for thought regarding today’s state of play—not only in artificial intelligence, but in the exercise of human judgment, and in the crucial need for conscience.

Put on the Armor

We should recall that, three years ago, the Future of Life Institute published an open letter from tech experts urging a pause of research and development in cutting-edge AI. They cited the danger of “a profound change in the history of life on earth.”

No moratorium resulted from that online letter, which warned of “dramatic economic and political disruptions (especially to democracy).”

In a materialistic and relativistic world, some technologists clearly wished to tap into resources of faith and past experience helping to inform and improve their judgments about AI. But they lacked knowledge of those resources.

It’s hard for all of us to hear God’s “still, small voice,” which Elijah obeyed in the Old Testament (1 Kings 19: 12).

Humans struggle to translate into action the empowerment which the Holy Spirit bestowed upon Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and numerous groups gathered on the Day of Pentecost in the New Testament (Acts 2:9-11).

Jesus had promised to send the “Spirit of Truth” as an “advocate,” bearing gifts of wisdom, knowledge, understanding, good counsel, fortitude, piety, and fear of God. Alas, we only receive when we’re receptive.

How to Converse about Conscience

The challenge of bolstering one’s conscience, experienced during Biblical times, is echoing today. Of course, people are free to reject invitations to particular, personal faith. AI experts remain equipped to act effectively on their concerns with a secular mind frame.

But many of us miss problem-solving opportunities because we lack a common language, as pointed out by a Princeton University professor in a May 8 commentary in The Washington Post.

“It’s increasingly common on college campuses to encounter students who are unfamiliar with the most basic features of Christianity,” wrote Gregory Conti, who describes himself as a non-believer. “Religious illiteracy” dangerously dims our discourse about the humanities, he said. That hobbles our consciousness of humanity itself.

Conti continued, “The future leaders of American society need to be fluent with its major religious traditions and idioms — so that they can understand their believing fellow citizens, and so that they can draw on the full wealth of moral insight that civilization has passed down.”

In this light, at a time when our human judgment must be fine-tuned rather than dumbed-down, what strategy can we employ to elevate and illuminate the role of conscience to figure things out?

The phenomenon of artificial intelligence now looks like a possible catalyst to trigger some of humanity’s best work. AI will not only compete with our assertions of excellence, but deliver shocks that make us ponder who we are, what we can do, and what we need to do.

“There’s a scary side to AI, there’s a benign side,” according to John Lennox, an emeritus math professor at Oxford University who has written extensively on science and ethics. He said in a February interview with the Christian group Missional AI, “People are confused, and on top of that there’s a great deal of hype, some of which resembles science fiction.”

Lennox is now focusing his scholarship on the AI-religion interface: “Worldview questions are coming to the very center of this [topic].” He added, “Increasingly, people in general, and Christians in particular, are going to be faced with the question ‘what is a human being?’ and ‘what does it really mean to be made in the image of God?’”   

Shout from the Housetops

Believers and materialists alike must work to raise public awareness of AI as a portal for exploring the human conscience in all its empowerment and distinctiveness. This demands diligence but holds great potential. We should remember that many young adults, including those newly curious about religion, welcome compelling challenges which yield a sense of identity, solidarity, and purpose.

AI stands alone as a potential threat to jobs and dignity, but it is also embedded in other moral quandaries deserving discussion, from war and peace to economic fairness, from bioethics to the futures of our children.

Such issues are meeting grounds for multidisciplinary, moral uses of consciousness, which remains a mysterious trait in humans and might someday be claimed for artificial intelligence. In these arenas of complex discernment where people don’t even agree on basic features of reality, people hunger for order amid the chaos.

New York Times columnist Ross Douthat wrote on May 9 that Silicon Valley denizens “who aren’t sure exactly what they’re building dabble in Buddhist metaphysics or consult with Catholic priests.”

He said it’s possible the takeaway lesson from Anthropic’s “achievement of Claude … is to show us what intelligence might look like in the materialist’s universe—even as our own [human] consciousness indicates that this universe is a much, much stranger place.”

Perhaps the Catholic Church, as it welcomes newcomers discovering a source of uplifting fellowship, can reach out explicitly to illuminate the gifts of consciousness and conscience as relevant, accessible, adventurous, and connective. This can happen in homilies, study groups, relaxed chats, and preparation for the sacrament of Reconciliation, for example.

A bit more creatively, what’s to stop evangelization-minded Christians from “talking up” examens as part of a self-help exercise routine for the mind, heart, and soul? Properly formed and informed, our consciences help to keep us fit for clear expression that contributes to the common good, rather than polarization.

Leaders in faith, politics, communication, and education might find a larger audience if they approach AI as more than a technological, legal, and business story.

The Bible teaches us in 1 Peter 3:15 to readily tell people the reason for our hope. Confident hope facilitates ongoing, detailed communication with each other and invites the Holy Spirit, our advocate and source of gifts for enrichment. We will find that people suffering from “religious illiteracy” will be intrigued and want to learn more.

Here’s one thing we can learn from Anthropic’s tribulations. Amodei chose to insert a lengthy “constitution” for Claude’s moral alignment. This shows meritorious transparency and good will, but the rulebook-first approach may strike people as a submerged, gnostic algorithm that becomes a “policy preference.”

This, along with the notion that an AI product might be a “child of God,” can be perceived as shutting down questions, not making discourse more hopeful.

All You Need is Love

In contrast, the charm and challenge of a conscience arises from its basic roots in God-given, sacrificial, other-centered agape. This love is a one-word constitution written on our souls. Love for others and love for God must be the principal messages—indeed Jesus’s two great commandments—voiced and actively evinced by conscientious people. Love is very detailed, but God is in those details.

A receptive conscience can act nimbly when necessary, but at other times it will crave deep reflection, prayer, and discourse to scrutinize itself as well as others. A person so disposed is a trustworthy fellow pilgrim who helps us keep pace with fast-moving tides but encourages wise navigation.

While we are watching the future of AI unfold, it is imperative that our imagination stays healthy. Many types and uses of AI, especially those not aimed toward omniscience (note the difference from conscience), will be worthy of our time, energy, and applause. The key is to avoid AI’s distractions but integrate some of its skills into the awareness we need.

Our examinations of conscience should be bulwarks of human intelligence, with no artificial ingredients. Genuine curiosity, grounded in wonder, will lift us above tides of hyper-reality and “AI slop.”

Who knows—A regular practice of examens might become a recommended security regimen to identify the mind-viruses, social contagions, hallucinations, and hacks threatening to shut us down. Job One is to keep love, which we might call our proprietary operating system, intact and secure.

The Bible (1 Corinthians 13) assures us that love “rejoices in the truth,” and it “always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” In contrast to every computer (or human) we’ll ever meet, “love never fails.”

Image by Microsoft Bing’s Co-Pilot designer.

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Speaker at RPI: Immigration Sets a Fast Pace for Theology

Posted on April 16, 2026 by Bill Schmitt

This news article for The Evangelist, the newspaper of the Catholic Diocese of Albany, NY, was posted on April 15.

By William Schmitt

As society struggles to care for today’s immigrants with dignity and diligence, a priest-scholar told a local audience last week that faith can improve our decisions even though “there isn’t a very elaborate Catholic moral theology about migration.”

Principles from the Church’s social teaching, plus historical experience, will help people form “a more detached spiritual view without being one of the players in the territorial political game,” said Father Bernard Mulcahy, OP, speaking at the Catholic ministry center on the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute campus on April 8.

Father Mulcahy, a Dominican priest and seminary professor in Columbus, Ohio, kicked off a series of talks on current policy issues hosted by Rensselaer Newman, which reaches out to students and others in the RPI community in Troy.

The Church has always preached love for the strangers among us based on Jesus’ own words; various areas of moral theology go into more details than this principle about migration, Father Mulcahy said. The call for charity will be fleshed out further as we confront economic, political and other factors affecting immigrants in national and global contexts.

People have crossed borders for millennia, he noted. As a rolling average, roughly 4 percent of the human race “has been on the move” during any given period “since prehistoric times.” We now think of these travelers in such categories as migrants, refugees, asylum-seekers and victims of human trafficking.

One more recent complication is extra mobility — people “moving at a faster pace.” Moral approaches which long have held true must be nimble, broad and detailed, understanding the context in the countries where migrants are in motion, carrying their desires for safety and sharing aspirations for a better life.

The work of theologians, by its nature, develops more slowly than the controversies in society, said Father Mulcahy, a native New Yorker who holds a Ph.D. in systematic theology from the Australian Catholic University.

The Church’s discernment on migration is evolving while holding true to basics. Its enduring insights into this topic and related guidelines — human dignity, the common good, faithful deliberation, respect for culture, and tackling challenges at the local level, not only as general concepts — help to reflect on today’s trends, he said.

Also, Catholicism itself has experienced practical challenges first-hand. Popes have faced territorial migration and even invasion, Father Mulcahy pointed out. The Church was sovereign over the Papal States from 756 to 1870.

Pope Leo XIII (1810-1903) famously influenced the secular world by applying Catholic social doctrine to insist on justice for workers as they confronted dehumanizing jobs and living standards during the Industrial Revolution.

After the RPI presentation, Father Jordan Lenaghan, OP, joined the discussion. He is chaplain of Rensselaer Newman, as well as parochial vicar of Christ Sun of Justice Parish, which Father Thomas Morette serves as pastor. A network of Newman Centers ministers to Catholics on numerous college campuses around the country.

Father Lenaghan thanked his fellow Dominican for explaining the complexity of immigration issues — one of the policy areas where conversation is often politicized and dominated by “those who want to oversimplify what the Church teaches.”

He said Catholic wisdom will continue to “respond to emergent situations.”

Drawing upon Scripture and an “understanding of the person of Jesus,” as well as engaging with history and current culture, the Church “creates the lines on the field,” Father Lenaghan said. And it’s within those lines that “theologians and believers reflect on, discuss, debate and pray about what this all means.”

Photograph by Bill Schmitt at the April 8 event at the Rensselaer Newman ministry center on the campus of RPI in Troy, NY.

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Inform Those Consciences—The Exams are Getting Harder

Posted on March 25, 2026 by Bill Schmitt

In the 2025 documentary film “The Age of Disclosure,” we watch Luis Elizondo—a former senior intelligence official who leads the push for government transparency about UAP investigations—as he reads instructive words engraved on the Jefferson Memorial.

America’s third president had written in 1816: “… Laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times.”

On a different topic, in early 2023, the Future of Life Institute published an open letter from tech experts urging a pause in artificial intelligence R&D given the danger of “a profound change in the history of life on earth.”

That letter has elicited no broad response, despite more than 33,000 signatures now appended online. It called for a “public and verifiable” moratorium on training the most advanced AI systems, to be enacted by national governments if necessary. The authors also urged  establishing “well-resourced institutions for coping with the dramatic economic and political disruptions (especially to democracy) that AI will cause.”

These scenarios of preparation enabling self-correction are food for thought during the spiritual season of Lent.

What’s Lent Got to Do with It?

AI and unidentified anomalous phenomena are just two subjects—along with economic vulnerabilities, startling wartime innovations, complex implications of global migration, and many more—where individuals and humanity at large must keep au courant during this era of rapid change.

As always, our efforts to become better “response teams” should draw upon time-tested practices and lessons from experience. Lent prepares Christians to stay grounded for one of history’s transformational moments through hope in Easter redemption, and it can put all of us on guard against our inevitable shortcomings—missteps which might, at any time, take the form of sin.

The season’s spirit of penitence, which makes us detectives of the defective, encourages use of a valuable, and year-round, tradition called “examinations of conscience.”

Today’s ethical situations of growing complexity and ambiguity require us to make rigorous assessments of pitfalls in our minds and hearts. Dangers include mediocrity, distraction, and the “seven deadly sins.” Pondering our current relationships with God and fellow humans, we uncover inconvenient facts about ourselves and our lives in community. Indifference is a modern luxury we should avoid.

The “prep course” of Lent has always entailed examinations, although it seems the tests are becoming more numerous and difficult. Judeo-Christian principles have always been good study guides, distinguishing between good and evil, honoring forgiveness and sacrifice, and affirming that our collaborative pilgrimage has a higher destiny. We’ve taken classes in “the humanities,” but now we may need a special review session on “humanity.”

Many DIY examinations of conscience, learned by young Catholics, relied upon assembling checklists prior to receiving the sacrament of Reconciliation. Penitents reported metrics of how many times they had lied, disobeyed parents, or acted wrongly toward someone else.

A wiser approach in this unruly era is to let the Golden Rule expand our imaginations and move us beyond checking boxes. In the Catholic Mass, for example, congregants recite a prayer of contrition in which we admit to each other that we have sinned “in what I have done and in what I have failed to do.”

These are times to wonder whether there’s more we should think about, more we should do. Our responsibility, though sharply focused, expands to include all human persons and unique human possibilities.

Let Me Count the Ways

“All sin has an individual dimension because sin is ultimately a personal choice to reject God’s will,” says Magis AI, an insightfully curated resource at the Magis Center’s website. Therefore, we should pursue “conversion, contrition, confession, and penance”—motivated not by guilt, but by the desire to optimize our liberty. We seek the grace that connects us to our core identity and the big picture, including eternity.

The notion of “liberal,” as referenced in the “liberal arts,” fosters a knack for critical thought, inclusive understanding, and “ethical engagement with the world.” The description is from Google AI, which also says this liberty of empowerment “cultivates informed and active citizens who contribute to society.”

Catholic theology adds its own perspectives to this high level of accountability. Magis AI describes the phenomenon called “social sin.” Sadly, humans coalesce into collective patterns and unjust structures which “offend human dignity.” Group malpractice toxifies the human ecology; such sin calls for everyone’s “efforts—at both the personal and social levels—to seek justice, charity, and solidarity.”

Scrutiny of our combined duties doesn’t end there. The Catechism of the Catholic Church also says people must be truthful in our relationships. Although such factors as discretion and respect for privacy can preclude telling the public the whole scoop about everybody in all circumstances, the Catechism is clear: “In justice, as a matter of honor, one man owes it to another to manifest the truth.” (paragraph 2469)

This panoramic view of duties, Lenten and otherwise, shouldn’t cower us; any earthly pursuit of complete knowledge is a fool’s errand. But tough-minded examinations of conscience can be the path to God’s liberating pardon and mercy, as well as guidance in striving for the common good.

Popes keep coaching Catholics, and the world, to adopt ambitious goals, like praying consistently for nations and individuals to make peace with each other. This mindfulness extends to other tasks.

On Oct. 9, 2025, Pope Leo XIV addressed executives of global media organizations, saying they too bear responsibility to boost the sagacity and fruitfulness of people and their relationships. The news media, he said, have “a crucial role in forming consciences  and helping critical thinking.”

Media producers and consumers can advance their service to all through conscientiousness. This implies a regimen of inquiry into social behaviors and aspirations which meets the need to understand, and care about, our private and public trajectories.

Looking Around and Looking Up

That’s the thrust of a forthcoming book by Arthur Brooks, a best-selling guru on character strengths. His new work, The Meaning of Your Life, begins with his thesis that “meaning has collapsed” in many people’s lives. They sense they are living in a simulation, with “false rewards” and “empty accomplishments.”

Brooks urges readers to critique and correct their paths by opening up to “the deepest mysteries of life—mysteries that are deeply human because they could never even register with any other species.”

Our society, like executives in Pope Leo’s October audience, delves into humanity’s depths in clumsy and shallow ways. We’re preoccupied by materialism and clickbait.

Secular journalists, politicians, and cultural critics are certainly productive in digging for scandals of collective errors and wounds. Of course, their attempts to fill information gaps are unlikely to use the words “sin” or “dignity.” They might spotlight some offenses as “systemic,” although this is a disempowering word; it implies overhauling everything and forgiving no one.

Nevertheless, news-driven inquiries into destructive behavior can bear fruit, so long as criticism isn’t weaponized to misdirect judgments or inflame hatred.

People of faith should be attentive to earnest, nonpartisan probes of current chaos. Disclosure and discussion can reveal problems and viewpoints which yield constructive action, so long as we supplement fault-finding with soul-searching. We should apply humility and compassion—not to minimize villainy, but to see patterns of dehumanization we all need to weed out.

Think back to social disruptions where political polarization has exploded. We often squander opportunities to use our democratic institutions and information channels beneficially—to see reality from different perspectives, to build consensus, to maintain alert and empowered consciences.

Social bonds in America’s public square have been eroded by such havoc as the Covid pandemic, cases of government overreach and fraud, outbreaks of warfare and lawfare, and movements to censor or censure “offensive” voices. The bonds must be rebuilt, with occasional help from daily headlines.

Recall that matters of individual conscience were raised explicitly during Covid-era layoffs. This sensibility still stands out in some coverage discussing justice and ethics in war. And stories from the ongoing “Epstein files” investigation have gained prominence partly because of grievous stains on the national conscience.

In one February podcast, secular journalists Ezra Klein and Anand Giridharadas discussed at length their impressions from the federal documents probing the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The reporters gave partisan perspectives but also shared incisive reflections on human nature. They wondered: What could explain such a large, long-enduring group of “elites” who had clustered quietly around Epstein’s strange mystique before his death in 2019?

As details of his activities and contacts have emerged, media have compiled stories about accidental newsmakers who surfaced in a range of American institutions and professions. They were said to be blithely trading favors in Epstein’s orbit despite ongoing investigations of his practices.

If I Only Had the Nerve

No doubt, plenty of conscientious individuals steered clear of association with Epstein, especially when serious violations of human dignity were at stake. But others, in varied circumstances and time periods, pursued desires for power, money, pleasure, recognition, transactional ties, and secrecy, according to Klein and Giridharadas. They posited a diagnosis of toxic “network dynamics” among this latter group.

Giridharadas suggested that, for influential participants in the Epstein matrix, “power really consists in your position and your number of connections”—going to the same conferences, for example, and enjoying similar privileges.

“Courage becomes harder,” he concluded, in structures where connections are cobbled together to retain power. Some who relied on seductive but fragile relationships might have decided not to risk their status by revealing embarrassing secrets or balking at dehumanizing behavior.

Giridharadas has since written a Substack series titled “The Epstein Class,” further analyzing how cowardice can hide behind influence. He began his report with wary words: “With great power comes great obscurity.”

If democracy can die in darkness, the moral use of power can slacken in obscurity. This should make us ponder the pressing need for transparency to oneself and others (and God). We know that only vibrant relationships are a fertile soil for trust and constructive influence.

Transparency is another word for manifesting truthfulness, one of Lent’s luminous goals. Magis AI, in another digital consultation, notes that the Lenten summons to examine our consciences is actually phase two of our quest for virtue and authenticity. Job One is to establish clear benchmarks for honest answers we give on those exams.

“Conscience is understood as an interior awareness or judgment that directs a person to do good and avoid evil, based on the general perception of moral truth written by God in the human heart,” says the Magis resource.

The journey toward this moral alertness begins with the work which Pope Leo prescribed to the media executives: actually “forming consciences.”

In a different message to the media earlier this month, Pope Leo said conscientious journalism should help “unite the different parts” of society. He urged exchanging “free and respectful information that upholds human dignity.”

Again, the pontiff implied that sharing such wisdom is the duty of all people, journalists and news consumers alike. Without settling for generalizations and polarized talking points, we must become good communicators—truth-seeking teachers and learners, caring questioners and interlocutors.

Formation and Information—What For?

Magis AI describes the challenge this way: “The formation and informing of conscience in Catholic teaching is a deeply spiritual, intellectual, and moral process grounded both in natural law inscribed in human hearts and in divine revelation.”

Well-grounded values are crucial because one’s conscience “can be mistaken if not properly informed.”

Indeed, we should avoid mistakes because it is also a sin  to “act against a well-formed conscience.” This responsibility to our human soul undergirds the concept of conscientious objection; the principle, properly referenced when reflecting on various controversies, from pandemic rules to military policies, is too easily dismissed. The world will serve up more events where consciences must be liberated to speak wisely.

In any case, conscience formation requires rigor, including intellectual efforts—such as receptivity to accurate, newsworthy revelations and debates, plus knowledge of the details behind crucial trends with ramifications for civilization itself.

The rigor also entails habits of the heart: honesty and humility, as well as bold curiosity about the unique meaning, mystery, and potential of humanity writ large. Klein and Giridharadas might agree, in their secular reportage, that we need the courage to seek happiness through enlightened relationships, not utilitarian networks.

One doesn’t need religion to muster courageous engagement, but the two go together. Media visionary Marshall McLuhan once observed, “You come to faith by prayer and paying attention.”

No Passengers on Spaceship Earth, Only Crew*

Therefore, we have a year-round task which is secular and spiritual, highlighted by Lent: preparation which enables self-correction, or ongoing conversion. Here are some takeaway suggestions.

  • Place a high value on one’s conscience as a living, growing thing, not a mere checklist. Keep forming it, informing it, examining it, and using it. Let it enrich diverse people and inspire them toward common grounds of reality. Don’t “light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket.” (Matthew 5:15)
  • Keep our institutions nimble and stabilized by moral vigor, in order to make democracy sustainable and preserve humanity’s distinctive gifts. That’s the writing on the wall at the Jefferson Memorial: As our minds discover new truths and form new opinions, “institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times.” Remember, responsiveness in an institution or individual does not mean always answering “yes.”
  • Cherish authentic relationships that remind us of responsibilities to each other. Remember that human beings have a special, even mysterious, connection to each other—learning from our similarities and differences, pleasures and pains. Don’t accept membership in man-made swamps bogged down in sameness or self-perpetuation.
  • Have the courage to be a detective who identifies the defective, to avoid swimming toward the waterfall. As renowned writer G.K. Chesterton said, “A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.” Address faults and disputes with charity, grace, hope, and forgiveness. Highlighting others’ flaws only to declare one’s own correctness is not courage, but cowardice; it could stop everyone swimming safely to shore.
  • Embrace humanity as an individual member of a global community that often performs well despite its flaws. In countless human families, transparency is a treasure; everyone is stronger because we instinctively detect scheming for pride and power, tendencies toward isolation and secrecy, or traits which dehumanize and marginalize. Transparency also helps family members sort out personal and group identity, both of which are crucial for life’s meaning and purpose.

These formidable steps of preparation may suggest that old approaches to examinations of conscience are no longer sufficient, that “this is not your father’s Lent.” But deep down, we realize this has been and always will be our Father’s Lent. God wills that the dignity of relating to Christ in his suffering, death, and resurrection warrants constant renewal of a person’s mind and heart.

Today’s fast-paced world also poses imminent questions about humanity’s choices between what’s actual and what’s artificial. The “hyperreality” displayed in shallow, cheapened media must not make us blur distinctions, become indifferent, or slow our reaction time.

New ideas about UAPs leading to encounters with alien species—or super-AI mimicking and manipulating relationships—might be among the non-human developments that will require us collectively to put our best foot forward.

We should be grateful for heightened, galvanizing awareness during this era properly called an “age of disclosure.” Thanks to Lent, we can pause to see that the really crucial discoveries must happen within us.

Image from Microsoft Bing’s Co-Pilot graphic design. *Quote from Marshall McLuhan.

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Frantic Times Need St. Francis, a Patron for Animals … and Humans

Posted on February 9, 2026 by Bill Schmitt

Your pilot for these past several years of verbal flights into “Phronesis” happens to be a member of the Secular Franciscan Order (SFO). I made my lifetime-profession into that canonically recognized “third order” of laypeople during the summer of 2001.

The decision was partly based on an intuition that the world (and I) needed, more than ever, the spiritual virtues which St. Francis of Assisi (c. 1181–1226) has personified for centuries.

With my sense of urgency still increasing, it’s high time to compile here some thoughts and information regarding St. Francis. Indeed, there’s hardly a better time.

Pope Leo XIV has declared a special Jubilee Year of St. Francis, extending from Jan. 10, 2026, to Jan. 10, 2027. The Catholic Church is marking the 800th anniversary of the death of Il Poverello (“the poor little one”), the patron saint of animals and ecology, as well as a historic voice of simplicity, peace, and compassion for all those on the world’s margins.

St. Francis, whose name our previous pope adopted as his own, died on Oct. 3, 1226, surrounded by his friars (brothers) at the home church of the three orders he founded, an iconic place called the Portiuncula (“the little portion”). Franciscans annually conduct a ritual remembrance of his “Transitus” from earthly life into the hands of “Sister Death.”

During one gathering held at this chapel, dedicated to Our Lady of the Angels and measuring only180 square feet, Francis received the religious vows of a woman who would later be known as St. Clare of Assisi; the two of them co-founded the “second order,” exclusively for women, later to be known as the Poor Clares.

This added to the “first” Order of Friars Minor (OFM), ordained priests and consecrated brothers devoted to living as minorum—those deemed beneath the nobles and first-class citizens.

My brothers and sisters, married or single, in the Ordo Franciscanus Saecularis are part of the Third Order of St. Franics. Don’t confuse us with Third Order Regular (TOR) communities of priests and women religious who follow their own their rule of life.

All Franciscan groups have a variety of apostolates and charisms. Our SFO rule prescribes living Gospel values in our families, the workaday world, parishes, and fraternities, as well as through ministry to the poor, infirm, and marginalized. The fraternities, called to see the face of Christ in all people, are local, regional, and national structures for gathering, praying, and serving.

Popes, priests, vowed men and women, and lay brothers and sisters have historical ties to the SFO. Notables whom today we’d call “seculars” (not an inherently negative word!) include Pope Paul VI, St. Francis de Sales, Mother Cabrini, St. Katharine Drexel, Spanish royals Ferdinand and Isabella, Christopher Columbus, St. Joan of Arc, and St. Thomas More.

There is also an Anglican/Episcopal religious order called the Third Order of the Society of Saint Francis, welcoming ordained and lay people around the world, maintaining fellowship with Catholics in the SFO.

While we can only imagine what St. Francis himself might think about the name-dropping in which I engaged above, or about how Franciscan family members have answered his call over time, or about the bureaucratic tendencies which have touched his trio of orders, we can be thankful that people continue devoutly to imitate the qualities and eccentricities of this saint.

There has been enough emulation—and sufficient recognition of today’s spiritual hunger—to propagate St. Francis’s global appeal. Pope Francis, a Jesuit, often referred to him, and Pope Leo, an Augustinian, likewise integrates wisdom from the Poverello.

I asked Microsoft Bing AI if Francis is one of the most-written-about people in history, and it responded, “Very much so.” It noted that “a conservative scholarly estimate often cited informally is that well over 1,000 books have been written about him,” although there’s no complete catalog.

The Franciscan qualities which authors mention most constitute a timeless vision of love, hope, and peace. These are some of his special traits:

  • The paradoxical joy of simplicity, humility, penitence, and persistence in suffering and sacrifice. It’s a synchronicity of audacity and austerity.
  • A reverence for creation, reflected in his familial terms like “Brother Sun” and “Sister Moon.” His love for God’s creatures is applied locally as we mark the saint’s Oct. 4 feast day, when pets are blessed at many parishes.
  • Compassion for the poor, which famously yielded stories of embracing a leper and accompanying persons dismissed as “second-class citizens.”
  • Loyalty to Church protocols and values, which anchored his entrepreneurship as a team-builder and wayfarer.

St. Francis showed his love of each unique person, foreshadowing Pope Leo XIV’s recent message for the 2026 World Day of Social Communications. The pontiff’s document urged us to honor everyone’s “human voice and face” as indelible, powerful counterpoints to imagery often manipulated by artificial intelligence.

Centuries earlier, Francis had enjoyed making the wonder of Christmastime more palpable for folks in the little town of Greccio. He innovated a Nativity “creche” scene populated by living persons and animals. This drove home the reality of Jesus’s incarnation, an awesome gift to humanity deserving our full attention.

The saint was also a peacemaker par excellence, even though as a teenager he was a soldier for Assisi in a battle with the neighboring city-state of Perugia.

Francis returned from that war and, boosted by stronger bonds with the Lord, assertively withdrew from his affluent, business-minded father. He stepped down, and stripped down, to encounter reality with a mendicant’s clothing and mind frame. We might call his approach dynamic tranquility, open to change and trusting in God step- by-step.

As Google AI reminded me, Francis traveled far to a scene of carnage in 1219. He “crossed battle lines during the Fifth Crusade” to meet the Sultan of Egypt, Malik al-Kamil, “seeking peaceful dialogue rather than violence.” The sultan allowed Francis and another friar, both unarmed, to enter his camp and share the Gospel message.

This did not put an end to Middle Eastern conflict, but the sultan admired Francis’s bravery and zeal for communicating about God. A providential light pierced the darkness of religious warfare. To this day, Franciscans have been granted “custody of the Holy Land,” meaning they serve the residents as good neighbors and as stewards of numerous Christian holy places, as described in Aleteia. A film called The Sultan and the Saint documents the still-relevant saga of interfaith diplomacy.

There’s much more to be said about this saint and his impact on my faith, but I doubt I can add much that has remained untold in a thousand books. Nevertheless, there are a few observations I have as an author. Starting with a self-published book in 2018, When Headlines Hurt, Franciscan values have continued to energize my critiques of culture and communication. Those pieces are posted as “Phronesis in Pieces” on Substack.

Even earlier, In 2009, I was privileged to write an article in The Cord, the nationwide “Franciscan spiritual review” then published quarterly by Saint Bonaventure University. I wrote about a visceral concern growing inside: symptoms of Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) which I had diagnosed not only in myself, but in society.

Americans were already experiencing the now-endemic distractions we associate with digital media. These include the abstraction of ideas, the polarization of people, the allure of artificiality, our anxious interaction with reality, our inability to effectively address our most vexing problems, and audience demands for “cut to the chase” brevity in news soundbites, popular entertainment, and the newfangled “tweets” that Twitter introduced.

My article, “Francis and the Short-Attention-Span World,” nominated Il Poverello as an unofficial “patron saint for an ADD-ogenic world.”

In his impulsive youth, Francis had aspired to glory and adventure within a bubble of privilege. But after his conversion, his lively relationship with Jesus turned him toward higher contexts. He saw the need for a simplified life, for ongoing repentance to recognize and rein in society’s chaotic, unjust ways.

Meanwhile, faith elevated his imagination toward the big picture of true happiness. He adopted his brand of practical wisdom (phronesis), improving individuals’ journeys by witnessing to Christian values. He became a compelling voice and face of self-denial, fellowship, and poetic, prayerful insight into God’s creativity.

Perhaps this combination of messages is a glimpse of connections Pope Leo and other faithful leaders will expand upon in 2026, juxtaposing two spiritual priorities—the celebration of St. Francis and wide-ranging caution about AI.

My recollection of the mission statement I was developing in 2009 renews my zeal for a patron saint who will keep the Church on the right trajectory. We must all be pilots now, using a comprehensive, cohesive flight plan to “up our game” against the media pitching sterile, mechanistic relationships. Franciscan instincts to pinpoint what’s important will allow serene souls to expand our “preferential option for the human.”

May this reflection on transitions and connections—the synergy between the big and the little, sacrifice and joy, humility and creativity—help all of us face a jubilee year of wrestling with the truth, and wrestling for the truth.

St. Francis models how to address these challenges by digging attentively into the grit of reality while rising above it through a transformative life with Christ. As modern communication drives us to distraction, we can refresh our focus by accepting the blessing Francis loved to give, “May the Lord give you his peace.”

Image from Microsoft Bing’s AI Co-Pilot.

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World Communications Day Message Outlines AI’s Risks for Humans

Posted on January 25, 2026 by Bill Schmitt

An updated version of this article, with papal quotes from the Vatican website’s official translation, posted more recently, is available at the Substack publication here.

The message of Pope Leo XIV for the Vatican’s 2026 World Day of Social Communications, released on January 24, guides human beings into the muddy waters of a digital future where artificial intelligence makes our path treacherous.

In a document titled “Preserving Human Voices and Faces,” he neatly sums up the spiritual and material pitfalls of the technology and provides specific advice for “protecting ourselves … with courage, determination, and discernment.”

Here’s a checklist of concerns drawn from Pope Leo’s status report, a text translated and reported by the National Catholic Register:

Our Essential Nature

His first point is theological. “The face and voice are sacred,” he says, because humans are created in God’s image and likeness. God communicates to us about himself through the Word, “made known in the voice and face of Jesus.” We must guard these features in ourselves to preserve our role as God’s “interlocutor,” where each person “has an irreplaceable and unique vocation … that manifests itself precisely in communication with others.”

AI simulations of human voices and faces—and of our “wisdom and knowledge, awareness and responsibility, empathy and friendship”—interfere with our communication not only via “information ecosystems,” but at the deepest level of relationships.

Algorithms designed to maximize online engagement are already promoting emotional reactions and “penalizing” our efforts to understand and reflect, the pontiff warns. Bubbles of confirmation bias make us less likely to listen or think critically, thereby polarizing society. A naïve trust in AI as our “omniscient friend,” archive of memories, and manager of tasks can weaken our ability to think independently and creatively.

The Values of Civilization

If we’re unaware of our dignity, “digital technology can radically change some of the fundamental pillars of human civilization.” AI is increasing its control over the production of texts, music, and videos, threatening “a significant part of the human creative industry.” This risks making individuals “passive consumers of ill-conceived ideas, anonymous products, devoid of authorship and love.”

Pope Leo comments ironically that “the masterpieces of human genius in the fields of music, art, and literature are reduced to the role of a mere training ground for machines.”

We must stop to consider the constructive contributions we will be able to make with AI tools if we continue “growing in humanity and knowledge.” We’re easily tempted to let our tools make us lazy, but surrendering to a machine’s capabilities “means burying the talents we have received” and failing to deepen our “relationship with God and other people.”

The pontiff raises “serious concerns about oligopolistic control” of AI systems which can “even rewrite the history of humanity—including the history of the Church—often in such a way that we are not able to really realize it.”

Our Sense of Reality

“When we browse our feeds, the pope writes, “it becomes increasingly difficult for us to understand whether we are interacting with other people or with bots or virtual influencers.” Public debates and individual choices can be distorted by “opaque” digital forces which persuade us, simulating “excessively affected” personal relationships. These AI tendencies “violate and occupy the sphere of intimacy of people.”

Technology that bonds with us by cataloging our thoughts and building “a world of mirrors around us” turns the tables to suggest that everything is “created in our image and likeness,” Pope Leo points out. We fail to encounter other human beings on their terms, making friendships impossible.

Bias is inherent in AI tools because they are “shaped by the worldview of the people who create them, and they can, in turn, impose ways of thinking replicating stereotypes” and reflecting assumptions baked into the data consumed.

Behind the Scenes

The pontiff cautions, “Lack of transparency in algorithm design, coupled with inadequate social representation of data, leaves us trapped in networks that manipulate our thoughts and perpetuate and exacerbate existing social inequalities and injustices.”

Systems that use statistical probabilities to imitate knowledge “actually offer us at most approximate information,” sometimes seen as “hallucinations.” Sources go unverified, especially in the absence of journalists who are constantly gathering and checking facts first-hand. When it is “increasingly difficult to distinguish reality from fiction,” we suffer “growing feelings of mistrust, confusion, and uncertainty.”

Pope Leo steps back to say, “The challenge ahead is not to stop digital innovation, but to steer it, being aware of its ambivalent nature. Each of us should speak up in defense of individuals, so that these tools can be truly integrated by us as allies.”

What Can Be Done?

The second part of the World Communications Day message is devoted to “three pillars” of a wide-ranging alliance addressing humanity’s AI issues. To succeed, “no one can shirk their responsibility for the future we are building.”

Responsibility is the pope’s first theme, taking such forms as “honesty, transparency, courage, foresight, the obligation to share knowledge, and the right to information.”

Executives heading the various digital platforms must form business strategies that are driven not only by “maximizing profits, but also by a far-sighted vision that takes into account the common good—just as each of them cares about the well-being of their own children.”

AI developers must be “transparent and socially accountable with regard to the design principles and moderation systems underlying their algorithms,” thereby gaining the “informed consent” of users. National legislators and regulators must “ensure that human dignity is respected.” That means protecting individuals from emotional attachment to chatbots, preserving the integrity of information, and monitoring the power of simulations to mislead.    

Media and communications companies must keep their “professional values”—aimed at “seeking the truth” with “a high standard of quality”—as a priority over selfish combat in the attention economy. They must retain public trust through “accuracy and transparency.” AI-generated or -manipulated content should be “clearly labeled and distinguished from human-created content,” with authorship and ownership rights respected.

Cooperation is the second pillar, meaning no sector controls AI on its own. The tech industry, policymakers, creative companies, academia,  artists, journalists, and educators must work together to help build “an informed and responsible digital citizenship,” Pope Leo insists.

Education, in turn, must increase humanity’s capacity for critical thinking. This is the ability “to assess the credibility of the sources and possible interests behind the selection of information that reaches us, to understand the psychological mechanisms that trigger it, and to enable our families, communities, and associations to develop practical criteria for a healthier and more responsible culture of communication.”

The pope urgently calls for cultivating, at all educational levels, “literacy skills” to help the public use media, information, and artificial intelligence wisely.

“As Catholics, we can and must make our contribution so that people, especially young people, acquire critical thinking skills and grow in freedom of spirit,” says Pope Leo. “This literacy should also be integrated into wider lifelong learning initiatives because older people and marginalized members of society “often feel excluded and powerless in the face of rapid technological change.”

With this boosted awareness, fewer people will “succumb to the anthropomorphizing drift” of AI systems. The key is “to treat them as tools,” verifying information, and protecting privacy of data—such as “your own face and your voice”—to preclude harmful content, digital fraud, cyberbullying, and visually deceptive “deepfakes.” Consumers should heed security practices and speak up to raise any objections, keeping track of the changing models of an “AI-based economy.”

The pope concludes, “We need the face and voice to re-signify the person. We must safeguard the gift of communication as the deepest human truth toward which every technological innovation must be directed.”

World Communications Days

This message was released well in advance of May 17, the Sunday before Pentecost, when the Vatican will observe the World Day of Social Communications. It has become customary to post a preview of the text on January 24 every year because it is the feast day of St. Francis de Sales, the patron saint of journalists.

This year brings the 60th observance of the Church’s set time to comment on the state of global media—an annual opportunity which Vatican II established in one of the council’s key documents, Inter Mirifica, the “Decree on the Media of Social Communication.”

Pope Leo XIV has addressed the topic of AI several times since his election to the papacy last year, but this is his first World Communications Day message. Last month, he spoke to a conference titled “Artificial Intelligence and Care of Our Common Home,” hosted at the Vatican. Pope Francis also voiced concerns about AI in World Communications Day messages and other venues.

Image from the Diocese of Armagh, Ireland. Click the Phronesis in Pieces navbar item“Papal Messages” to see coverage of World Communications Days back to 2018.

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Words of the Year: Defining Our Loss of Definitude

Posted on January 7, 2026 by Bill Schmitt

Seldom is heard a discouraging word, but we might admit our malaise after five dictionary publishers revealed their selections of the 2025 “Word of the Year.” The common theme those selections conveyed was a worrisome view of cognitive pollution in a communications world playing with new technology.

In recent weeks, companies which strive to define our expressions have made announcements describing an online culture that is anything but high-definition. Their latest, somewhat esoteric add-ons to vocabulary hint at a rise in artificiality, an inclination toward manipulation, and a retreat from precise, meaningful thought.

Here’s a checklist of what the English language is telling us:

  • Merriam-Webster’s “Word of the Year” was slop. It depicts “digital content of low quality that is produced, usually in quantity, by means of artificial intelligence.” The Wall Street Journal has reported that “AI slop is everywhere.”

In other words, easily made and monetized products are grabbing our attention through absurd videos, contrived news, advertising akin to medicine shows, and misleading quotations based on fake voices and images. Our scavenger hunts for quality information, poring through a sideshow of junk, now waste more time and expand society’s “hermeneutics of suspicion.” The sense of veracity and trust we need to make decisions for our democracy and to build honorable connections is being eroded.

  • Dictionary.com gave its dubious honor to the dubious word, 6-7. Spoken as “six-seven” and sometimes accompanied by a gesture of balancing two things, this slang observed widely among adolescents reflects a meme’s power to convene people emotionally without real agreement on its origin or significance.

Derived from a few celebrities and mentions in music, sports, and entertainment, 6-7 seems to be a short way to say “so-so” or “right, wrong, whatever” or the French phrase for indifference, comme ci comme ça. Some critics say it has a darker meaning, and in any case such a ritual embrace of emptiness, defined however we desire, can become the devil’s workshop.

  • Oxford University Press selected the term rage bait. The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as “online content deliberately designed to elicit anger or outrage by being frustrating, provocative, or offensive, typically posted in order to increase traffic to, or engagement with, a particular web page or social media account.”

For example, a study by Clemson University found a problem with more than 400 fake AI-driven accounts on the X platform. They were spewing Trump administration talking points to agitate readers about demands for the FBI’s Epstein files, a South Carolina newspaper reported in July.

  • The Cambridge Dictionary’s choice for 2025 was parasocial. This adjective describes “a connection that someone feels between themselves and a famous person they do not know, a character in a book, film, TV series, etc., or an artificial intelligence.”

The word surfaced some time ago to discuss those who express a parasocial relationship with a celebrity, perhaps as obsessive fans, called “stans.” But last year saw increased reporting on people who develop strong feelings toward a personified AI bot. This trend threatens to alienate and confuse people turning to technology for intimacy and advice.

  • The Collins company, a British firm whose products include many bilingual dictionaries for translation, bestowed its annual salute to vibe coding. This term refers to “an emerging software development that turns natural language into computer code using AI .” A prominent engineer reportedly said a chatbot’s capacity for source-coding allowed him to have creative ideas and “forget that the code even exists.”

This means a developer can describe a task, and a “large language model” will build the web page, or app, etc. According to Wikipedia, without the need for precise, conventional human coders, the developer and LLM collaborate on incremental testing in order to judge the project’s success.

Fans of reality and truth in our communications media may be discouraged by this 2025 collection of words—news we can’t use, or probably won’t use. But we shouldn’t be surprised.

After all, as summed up previously in Phronesis in Pieces, other years provided more than their share of ominous or discouraging vocabulary. Recall brain rot and polarization among the honorees in 2024.

Merriam-Webster, a subsidiary of Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., named authenticity as its 2023 selection. Its editors opined that, “with the rise of artificial intelligence”—and its impact on deepfake videos, actors’ contracts, academic honesty, and a vast number of other topics—the line between “real” and “fake” has become increasingly blurred.

The company’s Word of the Year in 2022 was gaslighting; at the time, a number of media voices had accused former president Donald Trump of that conduct. Of course, the passage of time demonstrated that, in White House politics, the game of “don’t believe your lying eyes” can be played by many participants.

The Oxford English Dictionary sent an early sign of society’s slippage from reality when, in 2016, it made the prophetic pick of post-truth. This adjective was said to describe “circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.”

We’ll wait to see what this new year brings in terms of experiences and expressions. Dictionary publishers say various factors go into the decisions on their annual word choices, such as the frequency of search-engine inquiries, a single-year jump in inquiries or usage, or the desire to make a point about the vibes of each cultural moment.

Lexicographers, now speaking to an online audience, are poised to employ crowdsourcing, inclusivity, “relevance,” customization, and AI for rapid updating of their products. Voicing its own concerns, a September Atlantic article asked in a headline, “Is this the end of the dictionary?”

The irony of the 2025 results—the fact that more companies dedicated to spelling out truth have highlighted words approaching reality with a “comme ci comme ça” attitude—leads readers to ponder: What are the meanings embedded in our thoughts, technology, and society as 2026 begins? We can imagine complex dynamics at dictionary companies in the indefinite future.

Is the desire for publicity or longevity leading them to pick more words which make us think, and to think better or worse? Might the apparent numbing of clarified, coherent, energized, and richly human consciousness prompt the publishers to announce what amounts to subliminal cries for help?

Image by Microsoft Bing’s AI Co-Pilot designer. Happy New Year to all friends of Phronesis in Pieces and OnWord.net.

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Human for the Holidays—A Gift that Keeps on Giving

Posted on December 26, 2025 by Bill Schmitt

The Little Drummer Boy learned that Christmastime gift-giving is more personal than material. By honoring Jesus as a newborn in the manger, the boy’s “pa-rum-pum-pum” song has encouraged generations to offer ourselves up—as presents truly “fit to give the King.”

Ideally, our offerings will convey not only something unique to the individual, such as the gift of music, but also a God-given attribute worth sharing with others at this moment in history.

We can be inspired by the tune’s lyrics describing an immaterial but profound Christmas offering which made Mary nod, Jesus smile, and the young drummer endure as a holiday icon. His special present, and ours, can be a timely and timeless promise that brings God and man together.

The tribute to bestow is simply an affirmation of our humanity. Consider this an ongoing pledge of intimacy and solidarity, recalling the incarnational joy found throughout the Scriptures: “Behold, God’s dwelling is with the human race. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people.” (Revelation 21:3)

The gift is well-suited to these days when our essential nature faces a crucial encounter with artificial intelligence. We’re battling immersive artificiality and dumbed-down intelligence, forces which tend to divide the divine and the temporal.

Novelist and commentator Walter Kirn voiced this secular state of urgency in an America This Week podcast after citing recent headlines about outbreaks of violence and hatred. “There’s a real weakening of the human self going on,” he observed.

More hopeful news for humanity has made headlines. It emerged from the corporate world of communications and marketing. Thanks to a decision about branding, your favorite radio station or podcast may have started repeating its own pledge this month. You’ll notice it as a boldly stated slogan: “Guaranteed Human.”

As Editor and Publisher reported on Nov. 26, “iHeart Media is doubling down on its positioning as one of the last ‘truly human’ mass-reach entertainment platforms” amid a “media landscape increasingly shaped by AI.”

iHeart, the world’s largest podcast publisher and owner of more than eight hundred radio outlets, has made “Guaranteed Human” an official part of its identity—restated during those top-of-the-hour station identifications which are legally required in broadcasting.

An executive told Editor and Publisher that iHeart’s platforms now promise they will not use AI-generated personalities. Nor will they play AI music featuring synthetic voices which mimic humans. Podcast hosts will all be human beings, too.

Of course, it’s possible that AI will creep in through commercial sponsors. Some news and other content may be written using the technology. Behind-the-scenes decision makers may still garner advice from task-specific “AI agents” analyzing their business.

Nevertheless, we’re told this basic “guarantee” has sent other media leaders and music producers scrambling. They must match or counter iHeart’s new doctrine, a preferential option for the human.

Most noteworthy is the awareness that a promise to “be real” is suddenly necessary. The company was smart to realize its challenge: Podcasts and radio programs are valued companions for countless people, and the content is known to provide crucial, trusted links within geographical areas or communities of interest.

The media giant also did revelatory research to support its statement. An iHeart memo reported by Inside Radio included these findings:

  • Among listeners, 90 percent want their media created by real humans, although 70 percent acknowledge using AI. Also, 92 percent say nothing can replace human connection, up from 76 percent in 2016.
  • Nine in ten respondents said AI cannot replicate human trust.
  • Three-quarters expect AI will complicate their lives, and 82 percent worry about the impact on society. Two-thirds fear that AI might someday go to war with humanity.

These are clear reasons not only to salute iHeart Media’s wisdom, but to consider how we audience members might adopt the same “Guaranteed Human” label. “Merch” touting this statement didn’t come out in time for Christmas, but it seems inevitable.

Imagine wearing a “Guaranteed Human” tee-shirt to the nativity scene in Bethlehem. This presentation is relevant not only to the Christmas story, but to the message of the introductory season calledd Advent; that annual prelude prepares Christians for a historical event (when a divine person took on a human nature) as well as a future event (when Christ will come again).

Perhaps the first supernatural reaction to our tee shirts in either setting would be a smile. A heavenly voice might say, “Your pro-human logo is clever and laudable. But have you considered all the ramifications of the guarantee?”

This inquiry prompts us to ponder what the statement of identity means. We are part of a species (homo sapiens) upon which God has bestowed immense dignity, entailing rights and responsibilities. When faced with such terms of endearment, how should we comply?

This is not a question that secular culture prepares us to answer, or even to ask.

The drummer boy passed his first compliance review with no problem, no wordy report. We assume that a demonstration of humanity, if we take it seriously, implies lifelong endeavors to discern and heed the guarantee’s content.

Assistance for our future compliance comes from the Magis Center, a Jesuit-run institute for Catholic catechesis based on rational and science-based evidence. Ironically, as of 2025, research into human nature is aided by the center’s “magisAI,” an authoritative chatbot which instructs, rather than panders.

Its database, informed by two thousand years of Christian teaching, assures us that people don’t need to avoid AI completely. When circumstances warrant, it makes sense to use artificial intelligence as a tool to turbo-charge our learning.

Our first question for the chatbot explores the belief that God made humans unique because of our immortal souls. Asked about this, Magis says, “The soul, in philosophical and theological terms, can be understood as the immaterial organizing principle of a living being.”

A soul “actualizes and directs its matter (body) toward life and its specific activities or ends,” according to magisAI. These ends would include nourishment and growth (in the case of plants), plus self-movement and sensation (in the case of animals), plus intellect and will (in the special case of human persons).

The human soul organizes the body’s physical processes toward powers that are ours alone—“rationality, intellectual knowledge, and self-consciousness.” We see relationships among ideas, so we have the capacity for reflection, abstract intelligence, and free will.

We can express complex concepts, even universal thoughts, with sophisticated language, Magis continues. Unlike other animals, we have a conscience. We are open to impulses of the ego, but also to choices between good and evil. Ensouled persons can gain knowledge of God and moral law. In lieu of these essential qualities, we would be “merely physical machines without true freedom, moral responsibility, or the capacity for higher spiritual experience.”

AI technology is indeed a “physical machine” lacking access to, or interest in, a relationship with the divine. Jesus came to earth not to launch us toward materialistic transhumanism, but to bestow an intimate, salvific God-man connection, as taught in the Gospel. (John 3:16)

Even though some tech gurus think we’re on the way to an “artificial super-intelligence” which mimics a god, humans have the distinct advantage of being made in God’s image and likeness.

Let’s proceed to ask, “What are the crucial qualities of being a human?” Here, magisAI offers insights into how persons shall put our guaranteed humanity into action. One excellent purpose is spreading the Gospel message to a secular culture which hungers for the transcendent.

Our essential nature and consciousness are rooted in what philosophers and theologians have called “transcendentals,” Magis explains. Humans “uniquely possess an awareness of and desire for” five things: truth, love, goodness (justice), beauty, and a sense of being at home. What’s more, we want to experience these in their perfect totality, not just in occasional samplings.

“This awareness drives humans to seek limitless horizons and fulfillment beyond what is algorithmically and materially determined, indicating … a spiritual dimension to human nature,” says Magis. The impetus toward higher, fuller reality yields rich bonuses in our lives; our yearning gives us a knack for wonder, contemplation, creativity, and imagination.

Meanwhile, our dignity provides the crucial groundwork for human rights and ethical principles. Persons deserve respect and protection in our pursuit of the transcendentals, regardless of individual abilities or characteristics.

All these insights combine to imply this: When we assure others that we are committed to being human—increasingly in contrast to being mere copycats of artificial intelligence, inauthenticity, and chaos—we are making a profound promise.

Just as iHeart Radio’s surveys discovered, AI promises us many amazing gifts, but we still feel a desperate need for the empowerment of companions who agree that “we’re all in this together.”

It sounds like full compliance with “Guaranteed Human” could be nearly impossible not only among iHeart’s broadcasters and audiences, but throughout society.

However, we need not be discouraged by the work ahead of us.

One hopeful way to keep humanity in the holidays—and in our earthly future—is to foster continuous remembrance of, even celebration of, the plentiful joys and capabilities of homo sapiens.

We can return to marveling at the record of civilization-building, the long historical arc of innovations which have improved material circumstances, and the enrichment of providential and scientific collaborations pursuing truth, beauty, and goodness. On the micro level, we can recollect and retell our many experiences of individuals’ qualities, big or small, which transform lives.

Of course, humans will often be on the defensive when declaring inherent worth. Those who doubt our dignity will stress all sorts of past and present missteps, the role of free will in causing great misery, and our failure to live up to the potential of faith or reason. Nihilists and utopians will portray humanity as a flaw, not a feature, in the march of progress.

We do need to cultivate bold, wise leadership in such fields as governance, religion, and education (the humanities, liberal arts, and sciences) to help liberate us from self-centeredness and thoughtlessness. The goal is to grow in forgiveness and humility, trustful discourse and critical thinking, so we can advance our compatibility with God and each other.

Families, friendships, and soulful communities will help us to share compelling, surprising stories about the material and immaterial gifts we’ve received in good times or bad. At its worst, artificial intelligence pretends to weave personal stories which are merely billions of stolen narratives rejiggered according to patterns, not priorities.

Catholic News Agency reported on Dec. 25 that the patriarch of Jerusalem urged drawing hope from the story of Christ’s activity in the past, present, and future. In his homily at the Christmas Eve Mass celebrated in Bethlehem, the cardinal said God “does not wait for history to improve before entering into it” but rather embraces all of human reality.

That’s why the Little Drummer Boy is a story of “guaranteed humanity” we should preserve. When we stagger from the apparent complexity of all the potential good and evil, excellence and imperfection of humanity, our souls call us to be models for holding true to our essential kinship with God.

The boy in the song responded authentically to life’s possibilities, answering a call to reach out beyond himself with the resources a poor child had at hand. He knew he could be an instrument of dignity—one beat at a time.

Whenever we’re asked whether we know who we are and what we’re destined to do, we can reply with something vain and artificial—like technological prowess—or something simple, real, and glorious.

We’ll experience many more ramifications of humanity between this Christmas season and Advent’s final promise. But our souls can find peace because we’re always just beginning, and God is always renewing persons in his nature and ours. Each step, one beat at a time, is a chance to generously reassert our intention, or “brand identity.” This present, bestowed in each present moment, is a worthy, thoughtful rebuke to a secular world that programs itself for temporary gains at a fierce tempo.

Our most basic instincts for life’s enduring, important relationships will keep us pointed toward the transcendent, not the transhuman. The former comes with a much better guarantee.

Image from Microsoft Bing’s AI Co-Pilot. Blessings of the Christmas season to all my friends reading “Phronesis in Pieces” and OnWord.net!

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