Artificial Intelligence and Care of Our Common Home - Book Launch in Rome
- Cecil Chabot
- Dec 8, 2025
- 2 min read
On December 5, the Maria Santissima Bambina Institute in Rome hosted a conference to launch a new publication on "Artificial Intelligence and Care of Our Common Home." Initiated in 2024 at the invitation of Pope Francis, this publication was jointly developed by the Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice Foundation and the Strategic Alliance of Catholic Research Universities, coordinated by Università Catholica del Sacro Cuore. Read more about the conference on the CAPP Foundation website.
CAPP-Canada Co-Coordinator, Professor Danielle Morin, attended the conference and presented her chapter on "The Impact of AI in Higher Education and the Consequences for the Leaders of Tomorrow." Professor Morin was one of seventeen academics and experts from ten universities and two organizations based in nine countries around the world, who gave this work an international and multidisciplinary perspective.
The book (published in English and available to download free of charge) analyses the development and use of AI in the fields of industry, finance, education, and communication, and draws inspiration especially from the Magisterium of Pope Francis and Pope Leo XIII. The work seeks to identify the risks, distortions, and inequalities generated by the unethical and unregulated production and use of AI. At the same time, it intends to explore the conditions necessary for responsible and ethically oriented innovation, placing technology at the service of the common good and with full respect for human dignity.
At a private audience with the conference participants, the Holy Father emphasized the importance of applying Catholic Social Teaching to AI:
We are meeting on the occasion of the publication of your research on a very important topic. The advent of artificial intelligence is accompanied by rapid and profound changes in society, which affects essential dimensions of the human person, such as critical thinking, discernment, learning and interpersonal relationships.
How can we ensure that the development of artificial intelligence truly serves the common good, and is not just used to accumulate wealth and power in the hands of a few? This is an urgent question, because this technology is already having a real impact on the lives of millions of people, every day and in every part of the world. As the Social Doctrine of the Church reminds us, and as is clear from the interdisciplinary work you are doing, addressing this challenge requires asking an even more fundamental question: What does it mean to be human in this moment of history?
