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Pope reiterates call to ensure fundamental human right to water
Posted on 03/23/2023 09:37 AM ()
Pope Francis sends a message to participants in an event connected to the framework of the UN Water Conference taking place in New York, and calls for “concrete and effective” action to ensure the universal human right to access water, calling it is a right to life.
States and global companies commit to sustainable development at UN water conference
Posted on 03/23/2023 08:09 AM ()
Over the first day of the meeting, more than 50 leading firms worldwide joined forces to help solve the global water crisis, while ten new States have expressed their intention to join the UN Water Convention
Bishop Kozon: COMECE continues to strive for unity
Posted on 03/23/2023 08:02 AM ()
After meeting with Pope Francis on Thursday morning, the newly-elected vice-president of COMECE, Bishop Czeslaw Kozon of Copenhagen, discusses the realities surrounding the European Union, ranging from migration to the necessity to keep fighting for peace even amidst war.
Zambia: Catechists in Mpika Diocese receive bicycles for their ministry.
Posted on 03/23/2023 06:07 AM ()
The Catholic Diocese of Mpika has purchased bicycles to support Catechists in their pastoral duties in the diocese.
Archbishop Costelloe: Pope calling us to become more synodal
Posted on 03/23/2023 05:37 AM ()
Archbishop Timothy Costelloe of Perth, Australia, a newly-appointed member of the preparatory committee for the General Assembly of the Synod, says Pope Francis is calling us to become “more fully a synodal Church.”
Thursday of the Fourth Week of Lent
Posted on 03/23/2023 05:30 AM (USCCB Daily Readings)
Reading 1 Ex 32:7-14
"Go down at once to your people
whom you brought out of the land of Egypt,
for they have become depraved.
They have soon turned aside from the way I pointed out to them,
making for themselves a molten calf and worshiping it,
sacrificing to it and crying out,
'This is your God, O Israel,
who brought you out of the land of Egypt!'
The LORD said to Moses,
"I see how stiff-necked this people is.
Let me alone, then,
that my wrath may blaze up against them to consume them.
Then I will make of you a great nation."
But Moses implored the LORD, his God, saying,
"Why, O LORD, should your wrath blaze up against your own people,
whom you brought out of the land of Egypt
with such great power and with so strong a hand?
Why should the Egyptians say,
'With evil intent he brought them out,
that he might kill them in the mountains
and exterminate them from the face of the earth'?
Let your blazing wrath die down;
relent in punishing your people.
Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel,
and how you swore to them by your own self, saying,
'I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky;
and all this land that I promised,
I will give your descendants as their perpetual heritage.'"
So the LORD relented in the punishment
he had threatened to inflict on his people.
Responsorial Psalm Ps 106:19-20, 21-22, 23
Our fathers made a calf in Horeb
and adored a molten image;
They exchanged their glory
for the image of a grass-eating bullock.
R. Remember us, O Lord, as you favor your people.
They forgot the God who had saved them,
who had done great deeds in Egypt,
Wondrous deeds in the land of Ham,
terrible things at the Red Sea.
R. Remember us, O Lord, as you favor your people.
Then he spoke of exterminating them,
but Moses, his chosen one,
Withstood him in the breach
to turn back his destructive wrath.
R. Remember us, O Lord, as you favor your people.
Verse Before the Gospel Jn 3:16
so that everyone who believes in him might have eternal life.
Gospel Jn 5:31-47
Jesus said to the Jews:
"If I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is not true.
But there is another who testifies on my behalf,
and I know that the testimony he gives on my behalf is true.
You sent emissaries to John, and he testified to the truth.
I do not accept human testimony,
but I say this so that you may be saved.
He was a burning and shining lamp,
and for a while you were content to rejoice in his light.
But I have testimony greater than John's.
The works that the Father gave me to accomplish,
these works that I perform testify on my behalf
that the Father has sent me.
Moreover, the Father who sent me has testified on my behalf.
But you have never heard his voice nor seen his form,
and you do not have his word remaining in you,
because you do not believe in the one whom he has sent.
You search the Scriptures,
because you think you have eternal life through them;
even they testify on my behalf.
But you do not want to come to me to have life.
"I do not accept human praise;
moreover, I know that you do not have the love of God in you.
I came in the name of my Father,
but you do not accept me;
yet if another comes in his own name,
you will accept him.
How can you believe, when you accept praise from one another
and do not seek the praise that comes from the only God?
Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father:
the one who will accuse you is Moses,
in whom you have placed your hope.
For if you had believed Moses,
you would have believed me,
because he wrote about me.
But if you do not believe his writings,
how will you believe my words?"
- Readings for the Optional Memorial of Saint Toribio de Mogrovejo, bishop
Lectionary for Mass for Use in the Dioceses of the United States, second typical edition, Copyright © 2001, 1998, 1997, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine; Psalm refrain © 1968, 1981, 1997, International Committee on English in the Liturgy, Inc. All rights reserved. Neither this work nor any part of it may be reproduced, distributed, performed or displayed in any medium, including electronic or digital, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
AI and the meaning of life: Tech industry turns to religious leaders
Posted on 03/23/2023 05:30 AM (USCCB News Releases)
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The people behind chatbots are asking questions of priests and ethicists rather than turning to their artificially intelligent creations. They want to know: What is consciousness? What is the nature of humanity? What is the purpose of life?
According to Father Phillip Larrey, dean of the philosophy department at the Rome's Pontifical Lateran University, Silicon Valley techies are posing those questions to ethicists and religious leaders as artificial intelligence develops rapidly and is used in myriad ways impacting people's daily lives.
In a conversation with Catholic News Service March 21, Father Larrey, a native of Mountain View, California, and author of two books on the rise of AI, reflected on how society should engage with AI as it becomes increasingly embedded in the lives of ordinary people through accessible technologies.
AI-operated programs such as ChatGPT, a popular software created by the software company OpenAI, "can access data to an enormous extent that for human beings is no longer possible," said Father Larrey. "That is why as a species we tend to look at AI with a certain fear, because we fear the unknown."
An artificially intelligent chatbot, ChatGPT uses learning algorithms to consume, produce and infer information for human users. The software is intended to mimic human conversation and can instantaneously produce essays and articles, write programming code and give people advice based on information input by users.
It's most sophisticated model, GPT4, was released for public use March 14.
Father Larrey said there are several "catastrophic risks" to unchecked and widespread AI use, such as its potential for spreading disinformation and creating code that can be used by hackers.
He also identified potential adverse effects of AI for everyday users, noting that minors can ask chatbots for advice in committing illicit activities and students can use them to complete their assignments without performing the work of learning.
A major downside of AI, he said, is that "we become dependent on the software, and we become lazy. We no longer think things out for ourselves, we turn to the machine."
Yet Father Larrey said that rejecting AI technology is a mistake. In particular, he pointed to the decision of some universities to ban the use of ChatGPT, noting that educators "are going to have to learn how to incorporate this into how they teach, what they test for, and how we can use these tools to our advantage."
"I don't think you can put the genie back in the bottle," he said. "The market motivation is so strong that you're not going to stop it."
In January, Microsoft announced a multiyear investment in OpenAI, which the New York Times and other media reported would total $10 billion. Other tech companies, including Google and Amazon, are testing their own AI-powered products to compete with existing software on the market.
That's why Father Larrey said conversations on AI must shift to what Pope Francis calls "person-centered AI." The pope, he said, "is insisting that you need to put the human person at the center of this technology."
In January, Pope Francis addressed tech-industry leaders from companies such as Microsoft and IBM as well as members of the Jewish and Muslim communities during a conference on ethics in AI at the Vatican.
The pope urged them to "ensure that the discriminatory use of these instruments does not take root at the expense of the most fragile and excluded" and gave an example of AI making visa decisions for asylum-seekers based on generalized data.
"It is not acceptable that the decision about someone's life and future be entrusted to an algorithm," said the pope.
At the end of the conference, Catholic, Jewish and Muslim representatives signed a declaration calling on AI researchers to engage with ethicists and religious leaders to develop a framework for the ethical use of AI.
"On social media and other technologies that came very quickly, we were trying to catch up and we weren't exactly sure how to do this," said Father Larrey.
But with AI, he said, the tech companies themselves are "beginning to think about how to structure some guidelines and some concerns so that this technology will be used for human well-being and human flourishing."
Tech companies such as Microsoft are "looking for philosophers and theologians" to respond to those questions, he said. "They are looking for people who know how to think."
"These people, who are really changing the future of humanity, they want to talk with us, they want to talk with priests, they especially want to talk with Pope Francis," he said. "They're looking for guidance and they're looking for support. They're looking for some way to make this help people and not harm people."
Some of those guidelines, he noted, include adding parental controls to technology so that parents can monitor how their children are using AI-powered devices, or establishing structures so that human decision-making is not cut out of the equation when AI is also used, such as when making a legal decision using generalized data.
Aware of the challenges AI poses to society, Father Larrey said he is still optimistic people can use AI responsibly and for the betterment of humanity if it is developed properly.
"I think that people will win over the technology," he said. "It's not without perils, it's not without difficulties."
And within the church, Father Larrey said he thinks "priests will be one of the last to be substituted (by AI), even though they have AI's that will hear your confession and celebrate Mass."
"People want to talk with a priest or a sister, they want the experience of the religious person that they can't get in an AI," he said.
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Contributing to this story was Robert Duncan in Rome.
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Follow McLellan on Twitter: @McLellan_Js
AI: The church's response
Father Philip Larrey, a professor of philosophy at Rome's Pontifical Lateran University talks about the challenges and promises of artificial intelligence.
U.S. Bishops’ Doctrine Committee Issues Statement on the Proper Disposition of Bodily Remains
Posted on 03/23/2023 05:30 AM (USCCB News Releases)
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Committee on Doctrine has issued a statement providing principles for evaluating some newer methods and technologies for disposition of the bodies of the deceased. The USCCB’s Administrative Committee approved the issuance of the statement on March 15.
In their statement, the doctrine committee affirms that every human being has been created in the image of God and has an inherent dignity and worth. Furthermore, since “every man and woman is a unity of body and soul, respect for the person necessarily includes respect for the body.” The Church considers burial to be “the most appropriate way of manifesting reverence for the body of the deceased,” as it “clearly expresses our faith and hope in the resurrection of the body.” While the Church permits cremation unless it is chosen for reasons contrary to the Catholic faith, the preferred method is burial.
Applying the basic principles found in the Instruction regarding Burial of the Deceased and the Conservation of the Ashes in the Case of Cremation (Ad resurgendum cum Christo) issued by the then-Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2016, the committee evaluates the two most prominent newer methods for disposition of bodily remains that are proposed as alternatives to burial and cremation -- alkaline hydrolysis and human composting -- and concludes that they fail to satisfy the Church’s requirements for proper respect for the bodies of the dead. After the alkaline hydrolysis process, there are about 100 gallons of liquid into which the greater part of the body has been dissolved and this liquid is treated as wastewater. At the end of the human composting process, the body has completely decomposed along with accompanying plant matter to yield a single mass of compost, with nothing distinguishably left of the body to be laid to rest in a sacred place.
The doctrine committee concludes their statement by recalling that the Catholic faith teaches us that our ultimate destiny as human beings includes our bodiliness: “We are therefore obliged to respect our bodily existence throughout our lives and to respect the bodies of the deceased when their earthly lives have come to an end. The way that we treat the bodies of our beloved dead must always bear witness to our faith in and our hope for what God has promised us.”
The committee’s full statement may be read here: https://www.usccb.org/resources/On Proper Disposition 2023-03-20.pdf.
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Pope Francis recognizes heroic virtues of 5 women and a priest
Posted on 03/23/2023 03:08 AM ()
Pope Francis approves decrees to promote 3 religious women, 2 laywomen, and 1 Salesian missionary priest along the path toward sainthood.
Pope tells EU Bishops to advance the cause of peace
Posted on 03/23/2023 02:50 AM ()
Pope Francis addresses EU bishops who have just elected Mariano Crociata as their new president, and invites them to continue to pursue the cause of peace.