Church must respond to digital revolution: Pope
In the hushed grandeur of the Sistine Chapel, where Michelangelo’s frescoes bore witness, Pope Leo XIV stood before the College of Cardinals on Saturday, his voice steady yet humble, delivering a vision that married the Church’s ancient wisdom to the pulse of a digital revolution.
The 69-year-old American, formerly Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, unveiled the heart of his pontificate in his first formal address as pontiff, invoking Pope Leo XIII’s 1891 encyclical Rerum novarum to frame today’s challenge: responding to “another industrial revolution and the developments of artificial intelligence” with the Church’s timeless commitment to human dignity and social justice, reports Vatican News, the official portal of the Holy See.
The choice of the name Leo XIV, revealed to his “closest collaborators,” the cardinals, was no mere nod to tradition. “Leo XIII addressed the social question amid the first industrial revolution,” he said, recalling the encyclical that defended workers against exploitation.
Now, as artificial intelligence reshapes economies, ethics, and human connection, Leo XIV called for the Church to wield its social teaching to protect the vulnerable in a world of algorithms and automation. “It’s a clarion call,” said Vatican scholar Sofia Conti. “He’s positioning the Church as a moral compass in the AI age, just as Leo XIII did for industrialization.”
Leo’s words carried the weight of humility. “This yoke is far beyond my strength—as it would be for anyone,” he confessed, acknowledging the immense responsibility of leading 1.4 billion Catholics. Reflecting on the mourning for Pope Francis, whose death preceded the conclave, he framed the transition as a “paschal event,” radiant with resurrection’s hope.
He honoured Francis’s legacy of simplicity and service, urging the Church to “treasure this precious legacy” and march forward with faith. “Francis showed us how to reach the margins,” said Father Luis Gomez, a pilgrim from Mexico in St Peter’s Square. “Leo’s picking up that mantle.”
Painting vivid metaphors, Leo described the Church as “womb and flock, field and temple,” its unity during Francis’s farewell revealing its “true greatness.”
He rooted his vision in the Second Vatican Council and Francis’s Evangelii gaudium, emphasizing Christ’s primacy, synodality, popular piety, and care for the poor– principles that unveil “the merciful face of the Father.”
He called on the cardinals to encounter God in “the whisper of a gentle breeze,” not in thunderous spectacle.
