(OSV News) — As the Catholic Church marks the feast of St. John Paul II, scholars and Church leaders are pointing to the late pope’s teachings as a guide for navigating the rapid rise of technology development.
Decades before AI entered daily life, St. John Paul II warned that technological progress must remain centered on the human person.
The Oct. 22 feast of St. John Paul II marks the 48th anniversary of the inauguration of his pontificate. Meanwhile, the John Paul II Vatican Foundation is celebrating its 45th anniversary with a series of events in Rome highlighting that the Polish pope’s teachings are still relevant 48 years after his election.
Guidelines for culture in the age of computers
In 1989, when Tim Berners-Lee was sketching out the idea that would become the World Wide Web, John Paul II was already thinking about how computer technology might change human life.
In January 1990, long before the internet became part of everyday life, the Polish pope wrote a message for World Communications Day titled “The Christian Message in a Computer Culture.”
In it, he welcomed the possibilities of new technology but insisted that its development be guided by respect for the human person. More than three decades later, as artificial intelligence reshapes education, medicine, work and personal relationships, and amid Pope Leo XIV first encyclical, “Magnifica Humanitas,” that message is finding new relevance, experts say.
“John Paul II would probably say today: Let us use artificial intelligence, but let it serve the human person,” Father Józef Kloch, a professor at the Pontifical University of John Paul II in Kraków, told OSV News.
Priest has studied AI for more than 30 years
Father Kloch has studied artificial intelligence, or AI, for more than 30 years. He believes John Paul II’s approach to technology offers a useful starting point for some of today’s most difficult questions that Pope Leo also addresses in his encyclical: What makes human intelligence different from AI? How much responsibility can people delegate to machines? And at what point does a helpful tool begin to replace human judgment?
For Father Kloch, the pope’s response to an earlier technological revolution is revealing. “He recognized the change almost as it was happening.” But the pope did more than write about technology. He encouraged the Church to use it. During his pontificate, the Vatican developed its presence online, launching its official website on Christmas Day in 1995.
In his 1990 message, John Paul II encouraged Catholics to make creative use of new communications systems, seeing opportunities for dialogue, education and the spread of the Gospel in the computer age. Yet he also insisted that technological progress required moral direction — a line sounding again familiar after the May 25 presentation of “Magnifica Humanitas” in the Vatican.
John Paul II: Access to information should not be confused with wisdom
By 2002, as the internet was transforming communication around the world, John Paul II was warning that access to information should not be confused with wisdom.
“The Internet offers extensive knowledge, but it does not teach values; and when values are disregarded, our very humanity is demeaned and man easily loses sight of his transcendent dignity,” he wrote in his message for World Communications Day that year. He also cautioned that relationships maintained through electronic communication could never fully replace direct human contact.
Those concerns have acquired new urgency with the rise of AI, Father Kloch warned, emphasizing that the papal magisterium from John Paul II to Pope Leo point to the central question — not whether such systems are useful, but whether their use leaves people in control.
“AI can help human beings, but it should not take away their agency — this is where the fundamental boundary lies,” he told OSV News. “This is how I understand John Paul II’s thought. At the beginning there is a human being: their intention, decision and responsibility. Then technology may come in, helping to analyze information, create or communicate more quickly. But at the end there must again be a human being who evaluates the result and takes responsibility for it.”
‘Redemptor Hominis’ was pope’s 1st encyclical of pontificate
John Paul II, in his first encyclical, “Redemptor Hominis,” published in 1979, described the human person as the Church’s primary and fundamental path. Human worth, in his vision, could never depend simply on usefulness, achievement or social status.
Msgr. Pawel Ptasznik, a longtime collaborator of John Paul II and president of the John Paul II Vatican Foundation, believes that philosophy provides a clear way to assess artificial intelligence.
“Technology must serve the human person,” not the other way around, Msgr. Ptasznik said in an interview with the Spanish Catholic magazine Omnes.
Msgr. Ptasznik — who worked in the Vatican Secretariat of State and saw John Paul II daily — recalled that the pope’s concern for human dignity was evident in ordinary meetings.
“When I came almost daily to transcribe the texts he dictated to me, I observed great discipline in his work, but also simplicity, human warmth and sensitivity toward others,” Msgr. Ptasznik told Omnes. “He did not treat the people he met as mere items on the day’s schedule, but gave each of them his attention with great kindness.”
The question of how to make that legacy important for younger generations is also at the heart of the John Paul II Vatican Foundation’s anniversary celebrations.
Passing the legacy to future generations
Established by the pope on the third anniversary of his election on Oct. 16. 1981, the foundation supports students, researchers and cultural initiatives while preserving documentation of his pontificate.
More than 400 participants from four continents have gathered in Rome for its Oct. 19-22 celebrations, which include a symposium, Masses and cultural events. A planned audience with Pope Leo XIV was canceled following the pope’s hospitalization, with Pope Leo greeting Kraków’s Cardinals Grzegorz Rys and Stanislaw Dziwisz during the general audience Oct. 21.
During the celebrations, the foundation also announced a new international initiative, “Be Not Afraid,” aimed at introducing young people to John Paul II’s thought. The program is scheduled to begin in the United States in 2028, marking the 50th anniversary of his election, before expanding to other countries.
Forming young leaders in John Paul II’s thought
“We are not aiming to repeat he was a great pope, which of course is true, but a new generation is in need of forming young leaders in his thought. We want to show his teachings as something very relevant for today’s youth, faced with everyday challenges,” Father Tomasz Podlewski, communications and event director of the foundation told OSV News Oct. 22.
“Young people today face loneliness, technology overwhelm, vocational struggles — to help them see that John Paul II, who so loved the youth, can help them embrace those challenges, is the goal of the program,” Father Podlewski said.
Father Kloch agrees that John Paul II’s teaching can help us understand the challenges of modernity as he was the first one to point to computer technology opportunities, at the same time warning almost prophetically of its huge challenges.
“Karol Wojtyla’s personalism reminds us of something fundamental today” — that technology, including today artificial intelligence “is not a person,” he told OSV News.”For Wojtyla, a human being is a conscious and free subject, the agent of their own actions, capable of responsibility, love and an authentic relationship with another human being. AI cannot do that.”
Katarzyna Szalajko writes for OSV News from Warsaw, Poland.
