THE NEXT FRONTIER

'...we must consider the digital world as a new continent to be evangelized, one that requires generous missionaries who are mature in the faith.'

Leo XIV, Magnifica Humanitas, p.166.

LOVE CAME DOWN

'What saves humanity is the divine love that descends into the most fragile point of our history and renews it from within.'

Leo XIV, Magnifica Humanitas, p.163.

OUR HUMAN TASK

'It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what it is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, unrooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till.'

JRR Tolkien in Leo XIV, Magnifica Humanitas, p.151.

THE INCARNATION

'The uncontrollable mystery on the bestial floor.'

WB Yeats in Erik Varden, Entering into the Twofold Mystery, p.167.

THE EARTH DECLARES THE GLORY OF GOD

'Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries,
And daub their natural faces unaware
More and more from the first similitude.'
Elizabeth Barrett Browning in Erik Varden, Enterintg into the Twofold Mystery, p.163.

THE RELATIONAL DANGERS OF AI

'The artificial imitation of positive human communication - words of advice, empathy, friendship and even love - can be engaging and at times genuinely helpful. However, for less discerning users, it can also be misleading, creating the illusion of a relationship with a real personal subject. When words are simulated, they do not build genuine relationships, but only their appearance. The artificial imitation of care or support can be particularly risky when it enters contexts where real relationships and emotional bonds are lacking. Here, the danger is not so much that a person may believe they are communicating with another person, but rather that they may gradually lose the very desire to form genuine human connections.'

Leo XIV, Magnifica Humanitas, p.83.

EVALUATING AI

'Technological innovations, including artificial intelligence, are not neutral, for they either foster participation and justice or exacerbate inequality, control and exclusion. For this reason, they must be evaluated by asking a crucial question: Do they truly help individuals and peoples to become more humane and fraternal, while respecting our common home and future generations?'

Leo XIV, Magnifica Humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence, p.73.

CHRISTIAN OBEDIENCE IS FAMILIAL

'To obey is to live in a state of sonship. It is to confess with the full force of my freedom that I have an infinitely good Father who loves me with infinte love.'

Erik Varden, Entering the Twofold Mystery, p.22.

WE SEE THE FALL IN DAILY LIFE

'What we know of the Fall from Scripture, we verify daily through experience.'

Erik Varden, Entering the Twofold Mystery, p.22.

BEING IN THE IMAGE OF GOD MEANS BEING INCOMPLETE WITHOUT HIM

'To be created "in the image" of God is to exist on the basis of a relationhip. It is to be constituted in such a way that our being and flourishing depend on a power outside ourselves that exceeds us infinitely. This relational nature of man - the fact that we are, by definition, incomplete in ourselves - lies at the heart of religious obedience.'

Erik Varden, Entering the Twofold Mystery, p.21.