Agnès AVOGNON

Speaking to someone is not the same as endorsing them. It is a distinction that seems increasingly difficult to maintain in an age when dialogue itself is so often treated as a form of betrayal. Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Holy See's Secretary for Relations with States, has defended the Vatican's willingness to maintain diplomatic channels with governments whose actions it strongly opposes. There is an important principle here and one deeply rooted in the Church's understanding of diplomacy. The purpose of diplomacy is not to reward governments for good behaviour, it is to preserve the possibility of persuasion, restraint & reconciliation, particularly when relations are most difficult. If the Church were only prepared to speak to governments whose conduct it approved, Vatican diplomacy would have very little purpose. Obviously the same is true of any negotiation, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, to a certain extent, but fundamentally we don't make peace with our friends. I suppose the Holy See's diplomatic tradition is distinctive precisely because its ultimate concern is not territorial advantage or commercial interests, but the dignity of the human person, the protection of the vulnerable & the freedom of the Church to fulfil her mission. Another equally important qualification is that dialogue is a means, not an end in itself. It becomes morally questionable when maintaining a relationship takes precedence over defending those who suffer injustice, or when diplomatic discretion becomes indistinguishable from silence. The Vatican's controversial agreement with China illustrates this tension particularly well. Negotiating with Beijing is not inherently wrong, however objectionable the Communist regime may be. The real & vitally important question is whether those negotiations are securing greater freedom for Chinese Catholics or merely making the Church's position more manageable for the state. Christian diplomacy must be neither naive nor confrontational for its own sake. It requires the prudence to engage those with whom we profoundly disagree, and the courage to recognise when engagement is failing. The measure of successful dialogue is not that the conversation continues indefinitely, but whether it serves truth, justice and the good of those whose lives are affected by it.

Can the Catholic Church offer something to the debate about artificial intelligence that Europe's politicians and technology companies cannot? I think Pope Leo XIV's first encyclical gives us a compelling reason to believe that it can. This evening, demonstrating how important the Vatican's voice still is in the world, Magnifica humanitas will be presented in Brussels at an event bringing together representatives of the Holy See, the European Parliament, specialists in artificial intelligence and experts in data protection. It's an interesting development, because this encyclical is moving beyond the familiar world of Catholic commentary & into a conversation about how Europe should actually be governed, and the questions could hardly be more important. We are developing technologies capable of transforming employment, medicine, education, public administration & even warfare. Decisions that once required human deliberation can increasingly be assisted, influenced or made by algorithms operating on a scale that no individual could realistically comprehend. The usual discussion revolves around efficiency, innovation, competitiveness and regulation. All legitimate considerations, of course. But they leave something essential unanswered. What is technological progress actually for? This is where the Catholic intellectual tradition has something distinctive to contribute. Beginning with Rerum novarum in 1891, Leo XIII challenged the assumption that the economic transformations of the Industrial Revolution could be judged simply by the wealth they generated. The worker was not merely an instrument of production he was a human person, possessing a dignity that preceded both the market and the state. That principle remains just as relevant when the factory floor gives way to an algorithm. A healthcare system might become more efficient by using AI to allocate treatment, but what happens when an individual patient is reduced to a statistical probability? An employer might increase productivity by monitoring every movement of a workforce, but what becomes of the dignity and freedom of the worker? A government might make administrative decisions more quickly through automated systems, but who accepts moral responsibility when those decisions are unjust? And when increasingly autonomous weapons are developed, are we prepared to surrender decisions about human life and death to machines? These questions go beyond the merely technical, they are moral questions, and no amount of technological sophistication can answer them without a proper understanding of what a human being is. Pope Leo's encyclical rightly insists that technology must remain subordinate to the human person rather than becoming the measure of human worth. But I think the Church must also be prepared to go further than offering general appeals to dignity, solidarity and the common good. Those principles are indispensable, yet their real value becomes apparent when they oblige us to make difficult distinctions. Which uses of artificial intelligence genuinely serve human flourishing, and which merely make systems of control more efficient? Where should technological development be encouraged, where should it be restrained, and where might certain applications be morally unacceptable regardless of their economic advantages? And perhaps most importantly, who gets to decide? Catholic social teaching has traditionally insisted upon subsidiarity as well as solidarity. Decisions should not automatically be transferred upwards to increasingly remote institutions simply because those institutions possess greater technical power. That principle deserves particular attention in Brussels. The danger is not only that powerful corporations might use AI to dominate individuals. It is also that governments, acting with entirely respectable intentions, might acquire unprecedented capacities to supervise and direct human behaviour. A genuinely Catholic response must be alert to both possibilities. There is something rather fitting about a Pope who has taken the name Leo addressing a technological revolution that may prove as consequential as the industrial transformation confronted by his predecessor. But the success of Magnifica humanitas will not ultimately be measured by how warmly it is received at conferences or how frequently politicians invoke its language. It will be measured by whether its principles help us distinguish genuine human progress from the mere accumulation of technological power. The fundamental question is not whether artificial intelligence can do more for us, but whether we are becoming wiser about what ought to be done. And that is a question the Church has every right, and indeed every responsibility, to ask.