Keeping Human Presence at the Heart of AI Communication – 60th World Day of Social Communications Theme

By Edgar Rubio

September 29, 2025

In the run-up to the 60th World Day of Social Communications, the theme lands with prophetic clarity. It urges us to preserve human voices and faces in an age when machines speak fluently and simulate us convincingly. The Vatican’s concern is not nostalgia. It is anthropology. Communication is a moral act before it is a technical one. Algorithms can rank, predict, and optimize. Only people can listen, discern, and love.  

Artificial intelligence has made the impossible routine. Now, text reads like us, images look like us, and voices sound like us. These tools expand the reach of both pastoral work and journalism. They help through translation, accessibility, and data analysis. Yet they also carry a spiritual cost when they become substitutes for human encounter. Deepfakes fracture trust. Automated feeds flatten conscience. Outsourcing attention dulls our capacity for wonder and critique. Put bluntly: if we surrender our judgment to systems, we surrender our freedom.  

The Church’s answer is neither technophobia nor naïveté. Instead, it is stewardship. First, we must insist that public communication remain anchored in human responsibility. Editorial judgment is not an old-fashioned hurdle. It is the very space where truth and charity meet. Second, we need a cultural conversion to Media and Artificial Intelligence Literacy—MAIL. This must begin in families, schools, parishes, and newsrooms. Literacy here means more than spotting errors. It means cultivating habits that keep persons at the center: slow reading, source verification, context, the option for the vulnerable, and the courage to say “I don’t know.”  

For Catholic communicators, the examen becomes newsroom practice: Who is represented? Who is erased by data gaps and bias? Do we use AI for the common good, or to manipulate and harvest intimacy without consent? “Human-in-the-loop” cannot be a checkbox; it is a pastoral stance.  

Finally, we should recover the sacramentality of presence in a mediated world. Faces matter. Voices matter. The Church’s mission has always been incarnational. God communicates by becoming someone we can see and hear. Let our digital ministries, our reporting, and our platforms reflect that mystery. Machines are instruments, not idols. Technology is a bridge, not a mask.  

If 2026 is to be a turning point, let it be this. Aim for a renewed alliance between technical excellence and spiritual wisdom. Let our communications proclaim not just information, but communion. 

Published in: https://www.signis.world/top3/29-09-2025/60th-wcd-keeping-human-presence-at-the-heart-of-ai-communication/