Having spent the past few weeks reflecting on some of the modern thinkers who prove to be a threat to our Christian understanding of faith and hope, Pope Benedict pauses the conversation to ask an important question: [W]hat may we hope? (Spe salvi, 22) With this question, he turns our attention away from those thinkers and invites a turn in, inviting us to see what, in light of all of these developments, hope means to us, that Christians “must learn anew in what their hope truly consists, what they have to offer to the world and what they cannot offer.” (ibid.)
To begin to address that question, the Holy Father asks specifically about what we as Christians mean about the word “progress” which has been at the center of modern thinkers; critiques of faith, as we have shown. I find the following words provocative:
In the twentieth century, Theodor W. Adorno formulated the problem of faith in progress quite drastically: he said that progress, seen accurately, is progress from the sling to the atom bomb. Now this is certainly an aspect of progress that must not be concealed. To put it another way: the ambiguity of progress becomes evident. Without doubt, it offers new possibilities for good, but it also opens up appalling possibilities for evil—possibilities that formerly did not exist. (ibid.)
The Church is not opposed to progress in the areas of science, technology, and medicine, but the pope offers an important caveat:
If technical progress is not matched by corresponding progress in man’s ethical formation, in man’s inner growth (cf. Eph 3:16; 2 Cor 4:16), then it is not progress at all, but a threat for man and for the world. (ibid.)
Just because progress has made something possible does not mean that it should be done. This is where the role of the Church continues to offer a valuable voice in evaluating developments in these areas so as to avoid the threat that comes from those forms of progress. There is no shortage of examples of when the Church in modern decades has spoken strongly against what the world proposes to be acceptable because of what progress makes possible, including: artificial contraception, abortion, physician assisted suicide, human cloning, various gender manipulation treatments, just to name a few.
One area of progress that is emerging with rapid development is artificial intelligence. No doubt, there are many good possibilities that AI make available, but there are dangers as well. This is something our new Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV, has identified as a key place where the Church’s voice is urgently needed. He said the following to the Cardinals just a few days after his election, explaining the choice of his name and how it speaks to the present challenge:
Sensing myself called to continue in this same path, I chose to take the name Leo XIV. There are different reasons for this, but mainly because Pope Leo XIII in his historic Encyclical Rerum Novarum addressed the social question in the context of the first great industrial revolution. In our own day, the Church offers to everyone the treasury of her social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defence of human dignity, justice and labour. (Pope Leo XIV, Address to the College of Cardinals, 10 May 2025)
Let us pray that the Church will continue to offer that voice of truth, helping us to discern what is good and worthy of adoption, and what is contrary to human dignity and progress, and should be avoided so that the common good of all can be secured and maintained.