Milan (AsiaNews) – Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical “Magnifica Humanitas” has, in recent months, paved the way for much reflection on the challenge of safeguarding humanity in the age of artificial intelligence. Fitting squarely into this context, a seminar held from 27 to 31 October in Macao, organised by the Office for Social Communications of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences (FAB-OSC), made a particularly strong contribution. Bishops, religious and lay pastoral workers engaged in the field of communication across various countries on the continent – in a location of particular significance for the history of the missions in Asia – discussed the theme: “Magnifica Humanitas and the synodal paths of evangelisation in Asia: communicating Christ in the age of artificial intelligence”. We publish below the concluding statement they chose to issue at the end of the seminar.
1. Gathered in Grace in the Digital World
Gathered at Vila São José in Macau from October 27 to 31, 2026, we- bishops, priests, religious, lay communication leaders from across Asia- offer this statement as the fruit of prayer, discernment, and synodal dialogue.
As the diocese of Macau marks its 450th anniversary, we honor its missionary heritage as a bridge between the Gospel and Asian cultures. Today, this historic platform provides the ideal vantage point for the Church in Asia to renew her missionary commitment. From these historic shores we turn towards the "digital world" renewing our commitment to communicate Christ amid the opportunities and challenges of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
2. Seeing Asia's Digital Reality: Promise, Division, and Wounds
Following the pastoral movement of See-Judge-Act, we recognize Asia's extraordinary digital potential alongside its inequalities. As the catalyst of the fourth industrial revolution, AI represents an important changing of time, which we must recognize as a gift of God and an opportunity for humanity.
As the digital center of the world, Asia accounts for two-thirds of the six billion online users globally (DataReportal, Digital 2026). Because Catholics comprise a minority of 11% across the continent (Annuarium Statisticum Ecclesiae 2023), the first encounter of the majority of Asians with the Church will likely happen on a screen. This "contemporary Areopagus" (RM, 37) calls for witnesses whose technological competence is grounded in faith, integrity, and compassion.
At the same time, Asia holds the world's largest offline populations, turning digital access into an urgent matter of social justice. We bear the brunt of digital wounds such as trafficking in cyber-scam compounds, online sexual exploitation, deepfakes undermining truth, and temptations to pursue visibility or replace prayerful preparation with generated content. We also recognize the hidden costs of AI: exploitative labor, traumatic content moderation, environmental destruction, and the misrepresentation of Asian cultures and religious traditions (MH, 173).
3. Discerning in Faith: Rejecting Babel, Rebuilding Jerusalem
In his encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, Pope Leo XIV reminds us that the challenge of AI is fundamentally anthropological, not merely technological (MH, 24). Human dignity is grounded in the imago Dei (MH, 50) and manifested in our finitude, limits, and vulnerability (MH, 122). We firmly reject transhumanist ideologies and "algorithmic eugenics" that attempt to eliminate human weakness or measure human worth through efficiency, performance metrics, or "AI IQ".
Against Babel's pursuit of pride, control, and domination (Gen 11:1-9), we embrace Nehemiah's synodal model of rebuilding Jerusalem (Neh 2-6): restoring relationships, strengthening community, and gathering everyone's gifts. Since technology is never neutral in practice (MH 9, 104; QVH, 42), and efficiency alone is never a sufficient measure of moral goodness (MH, 92), the Church must ensure that AI is at the service of Communion.
4. Choosing an Asian and Synodal Path
"Faced with this concentration of power in the digital world, the criteria for judgment and discernment in this new situation are the noble principles of Social Doctrine: the inalienable dignity of the human person, the common good, the universal destination of goods, subsidiarity, solidarity and social justice" (MH, 96). To transform ethical principles into concrete action, the Church in Asia embraces the "wisdom of the heart" (Francis, 58th WCD Message) by prioritizing incarnational presence over digital simulation (Jn 1: 14), grounding all online connection in authentic, embodied human encounters and sacramental life. Rooted in its synodal experience, the Church applies "Conversations in the Spirit" within the digital sphere- engaging local cultures in their native languages, joining with other living religions, and standing in solidarity with the poor who are on the other side of the "digital divide" (AN, 52).
In response to an attention economy driven by outrage and commercial repetition dictated by algorithms, Asia can offer its rich contemplative heritage of meditation, interior silence, and prayer, anchored in deep spirituality. Guided by subsidiarity (MH 31), dioceses, parishes, schools, seminaries, Catholic media, and Caritas networks could become communities of digital care, providing formation and protecting people from manipulation, exploitation, and isolation.
5. Concrete Proposals and Initiatives
As the Church in Asia engages the digital world, we commit to promote and encourage the following:
1. AI Education. To help promote AI literacy and form people at all levels in the critical and ethical use of AI, guided by Pope Leo XIV's Magnifica Humanitas, in collaboration with ecclesiastical and secular structures.
2. Formulating AI Policies. To encourage episcopal conferences to establish pastoral safeguards for the use of AI appropriate to their context in line with the teachings of the Church.
3. Communion of Resources. To encourage episcopal conferences to produce and make digitally available authentic doctrinal and pastoral resources, like Papal Documents, in the vernacular languages, which could be a help to AI platforms for an accurate representation of Christian faith. FABC-OSC can also facilitate an exchange of best practices in terms of how they apply AI in their own local churches.
4. Accompanying digital missionaries. We commit to and call upon episcopal conferences to recognize, mentor, and integrate digital creators offering spiritual guidance and encouragement, and providing for structures and networks to support their mission. The FABC-OSC and Radio Veritas Asia commit to sustain and promote the Asian Catholic Digital Missionaries Network.
5. Infrastructure Support. To offer institutional support across the region, the FABC-OSC is to establish a committee to help the conferences train and empower digital missionaries and synergize their work with the Church's mission of evangelization.
Conclusion
Behind every screen, there is a face. Machines can carry words across the world faster than ever, but only human persons can carry authentic presence, and only a community can offer the Bread of Life and proclaim "that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched" (1 Jn 1:1) the living Word of Life. Through the intercession of Our Lady, Star of Evangelization, may the Church in Asia speak the language of this digital age with hope, wisdom, courage, and joy-building a "civilization of love" (MH, 185) where technology serves human dignity and the common good.
