Interview with a former AI researcher — the pope’s preacher!

Returning to the Church through the Gospel

Fr. Roberto Pasolini: My story is that of a man born in the 1970s in Italy: a Catholic country, at least culturally speaking. I experienced my initiation into the faith like all children my age. 

Around the age of 15 or 16, however, I distanced myself from my parish because I felt that I wasn’t finding in the Christian community the stimulation and answers that my heart was seeking at that age.

I didn’t become an atheist, because I believe that it takes even more faith to be an atheist than to believe: the atheist position is very intellectual, very abstract. I had a very scientific approach to knowledge — that was my field of study: mathematics, computer science, artificial intelligence — and I was mainly looking for a rational explanation for the mystery of life.

But I also loved music, novels, and books, because I felt that the meaning of life couldn’t be reduced to science alone.

After several years of experimentation and research in all directions, around the age of 22, I happened to start reading the Gospel again on the subway on my way to university. The daily newspaper I was buying at the time offered the text of the Gospel according to St. Matthew as a supplement. And so, one morning — by chance or by providence — I started reading the Gospel again.

I was going through a difficult time, because young people feel the pain of living intensely, and reading this text touched my heart deeply.

Discovering Franciscan spirituality

Fr. Pasolini: After this discovery, I decided to read all the Gospels, then the entire Bible. It gave me back the desire to get closer to my Christian community. It was still a very poor community, but I now had the eyes to recognize in this poverty the mystery of Christ who died and rose again.

Through the poor, volunteer work, and service to others, I spent three years joyfully rediscovering the flavor of Christian life, to the point of wondering how I could live it more radically.

I was engaged at the time, but I realized that this was no longer what I wanted. I left my fiancée and began to search in several directions — until one evening I discovered the writings of St. Francis of Assisi. I went home crying, overwhelmed. I then approached the Franciscan friars in the city of Milan where I lived.

After numerous meetings and a period of discernment, I was convinced. I finished my thesis on artificial intelligence, then announced to my professors that I was going to enter religious life. I had found a language, a word more important than any I had sought until then: a word that seemed to me to be the salvation of the world, and that I wanted to celebrate with my whole life and share with others.

Preaching from the heart

Fr. Pasolini: Preaching is already a great commitment. On the one hand, the world awaits the word of God; on the other, there’s always the risk of transmitting it badly — too harshly or too gently.

The challenge today is to proclaim the mystery of God in a way that is both faithful and creative, rooted in tradition but in dialogue with today's sensibilities. That's what I try to do, even in front of the Pope and the cardinals, without thinking too much about the fact that I'm speaking in front of them.

I try to remain myself. This is the advice Pope Francis gave me: Don't let yourself be conditioned by your position; continue to do what you were chosen to do. Often, when you reach an important position, you change your tone and lose your spontaneity.

On the contrary, I try not to fall into this trap, while also preparing myself more: I have to write my texts and then send them to the Dicastery for Communication, which requires more rigor. I also read more of the Pope's writings and take into account the social issues of the moment.

In my opinion, the most important thing for a preacher is not to simply repeat information in a nice way. Besides, artificial intelligence will soon be able to do that: ChatGPT will be able to compose beautiful homilies! What really matters is to let the words pass through your own heart, to say them as if you were first addressing them to yourself and your own sensibilities.

AI could help us rediscover ourselves

Fr. Pasolini: I believe that artificial intelligence will give us an even better understanding of what makes us human, that little something that only we can do — and that we often don't do.

We often spend our days performing a series of tasks that a computer could just as easily do, and we may only put 1% of our true humanity into them — that is, our feelings, what we feel deeply.

I believe that if we’re all so tired, it’s because we already live a little like computers: We do too many things, one after the other, without ever really being present in what we’re doing. We act because we have to act. The fact that, soon, most things will be able to be done by a computer will force us to ask ourselves: Where do we choose to put our heart and love today?

Artificial intelligence could overwhelm us even more if we aren’t careful. But if, on the contrary, we show a little spiritual intelligence, we could give ourselves the freedom to delegate a whole series of things that a computer can do for us — and give ourselves the freedom to really put sensitivity, love, and a focus on others into what we do.

Let me give you an example: today, artificial intelligence can write an important text, and that's fine. The key thing is that if I have to read this text in front of people, then I can transform it into a human act. I can look people in the eye and decide where to place the emphasis.

So we always remain free: free to remain human or to become like machines. We must be “concerned” about what’s coming, but not “afraid”; because fear never leads us in a good direction.

Free to choose as an outsider

Fr. Pasolini: Yes. I recently met with Pope Leo and asked him if he had any guidelines, and he gave me the freedom to choose the themes. This is precisely part of the ministry of the preacher of the Papal Household: to be free to choose, according to one's own sensibility, the subjects that could be important to the Pope and the cardinals.

This is why the preacher doesn’t belong to the Church hierarchy. He comes from outside, a bit like a troubadour at court. He doesn’t come to make people laugh, but to make them think, offering a meditation before leaving.

Pope Leo: a listener and consolidator

Fr. Pasolini: What I noticed most of all was that he’s a man who listens a lot. He devoted a lot of time to me; he wanted to get to know me. I believe he’s in a phase of listening deeply to the Church. He doesn’t make hasty decisions; he doesn’t do things quickly, because he wants to really listen first, and that seems to me to be a sign of great intelligence on his part.

All the more so because he comes after Pope Francis, who stirred up a lot of excitement in the Church: a very charismatic, very strong pope. Now we need time for the spiritual provocations of the previous pontificate to settle down, so that we can calmly discern the direction to take for the future.

I think Pope Leo wants above all to prevent polarization — present in the world but also in the Church — from continuing to tear apart and break the fabric of the Christian community. He wants to bring the Christian people together, to avoid there always being two camps that must necessarily clash.

Continuity with Pope Francis

Fr. Pasolini: I believe that the first one is the same as the concern that Pope Leo already has in his heart: to avoid internal divisions within the Church. The other important point, which Pope Francis had already highlighted in the encyclical Fratelli tutti, concerns the Church's responsibility to serve the world.

The task of the Church today is to remain faithful to itself, to preserve its identity, but without seeking at all costs to have it recognized or imposed. The Church should be less self-referential, less concerned with itself, and more focused on the world. It shouldn’t be concerned with defending its positions or privileges. When the situation is difficult, what’s needed isn’t to withdraw into oneself, but to be concerned with others, as a doctor would be.

Vital themes for today

Fr. Pasolini: I’d like to work on the theme of waiting, which is typical of the Advent season: waiting not as a time of inertia or inaction, but rather as a time of spiritual and laborious intelligence.

We’re living in a time of profound transformation, including at the ecclesial level, and it will take time for the face of tomorrow's Church to emerge. I’d therefore like to construct three meditations that help us to reinterpret waiting as a time of hope.

Since we’re coming to the end of the Jubilee, the title could be something like “Guardians of Hope.” After this time in which we’ve revived our Christian hope, we must now have confidence. We must know how to wait — not passively — expecting God to send his grace from heaven, but in an active and confident expectation.

Fr. Pasolini: The first words might be a wish for peace, but I wouldn’t say it in a religious way. I’d try to find an expression that would convey to them the joy of being able to meet them and stand before them in an attitude of dialogue.

I’ve had several experiences of dialogue with non-believers, and for me, the most important thing is never to give them answers to questions that I assume they’re asking themselves, but to seek to understand what their real questions are, the profound questions they carry in their hearts.