The head of the Vatican’s communications department said that while new technology can support the Church, it cannot replace the essential work of ministry.

Italian layman Paolo Ruffini, the prefect of the Dicastery for Communication, said that despite technological advancements, the core mission of ministering to people remains irreplaceable.

He highlighted that the Church is a “communion” rooted in the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

“Communion is what makes us members of one another and it is also the most powerful means of Church communication,” Ruffini said. “Technology comes after. It is a tool.”

The award-winning journalist was speaking in a recorded video message to the participants of the 2024 National Catholic Social Communications Convention in Lipa City, which began on Monday.

With the theme “AI: Authentic Influencers for an Empowered Church,” the convention aims to tackle the role of artificial intelligence in evangelization.

Ruffini stressed that true generative intelligence comes from personal encounters, “where the most wise and constructive decisions are made.”

“We cannot delegate such experience to algorithms based on calculating probabilities which are actually neither intelligence nor artificial. We cannot,” he said.

“There are and always will be things that a technology cannot replace, like freedom, like the miracle of encounter between people, like the surprise of the unexpected, the conversion, the outburst of ingenuity, the gratuitous love,” he said.

While praising the benefits of modern tools, Pope Francis has repeatedly emphasized that AI poses serious ethical concerns and must be used responsibly to uphold human dignity and promote the common good.

For this reason, Ruffini emphasized that the use of technology requires guidelines and ethical considerations, including philosophical and theological reflections.

“We need to look beyond. We need awareness and responsibility,” he pointed out.

Ruffini challenged the Catholic communicators, “even through artificial intelligence,” a network of communication “based on the communion that unites us, on the truth that sets us free, on the love that explains everything.”

The digital world is not ready-made. It is changing every day. We can change it. We can shape it. And we need catalytic communicators to do it, with love and with human intelligence,” he added.

Organized by the CBCP Episcopal Commission on Social Communications (ECSC), the four-day gathering brought together more than 300 participants from different dioceses across the country.

Its chairman, Bishop Marcelino Antonio Maralit of Boac, reminded Catholic communicators of the significance of AI for the Church and the human family.

“It’s not only just a cultural reality that will be changed. It is a changing epoch,” according to Maralit. “We need to have a close oversight of the ever-developing technology.”

“So, for what reason [do] we have to sit here, to talk, to listen, and to discern? Because we are now in a change of epoch,” he also said.