Matthew Harvey Sanders (Magisterium AI) and Dr. Marc Barnes (New Polity) debate the question: “Can Catholics Talk to AI Chatbots?”

The discussion, hosted by Edmund Mitchell on the Faith & AI Podcast, centers on Barnes’s viral essay “Delete Magisterium AI.” Barnes published the piece in response to Sanders’ recent address at the Guild of Our Lady of Ransom’s Advent Lecture in London.

You can watch the full debate via the YouTube link. You can also review Matthew’s opening remarks of the debate below.

Matthew Harvey Sanders’ Opening Address

Before we begin, I want to clarify something.

What I think about this topic ultimately doesn’t matter. 

In a time of confusion, our safety lies not in our own arguments, but in conforming our minds to the mind of the Church. We must look to the Holy See for guidance on these new frontiers.

It’s in this spirit of fidelity that I ask you to listen to the following message from Pope Leo, addressed before Christmas to the Builders AI Forum, which was a gathering of Catholics to explore how AI could be used to support the mission of the Church.

Message of the Holy Father Leo XIV: To the Participants in the Builders AI Forum

I send cordial greetings to all participating in the Builders AI Forum 2025, taking place at the Pontifical Gregorian University. I express gratitude to the organizers and all who, through research, entrepreneurship and pastoral vision, seek to ensure that emerging technologies remain oriented toward the dignity of the human person and the common good.

This Forum’s aim of fostering “a new interdisciplinary community of practice dedicated to supporting the development of AI products that serve the Church’s mission” reflects an important issue of our time: not merely what AI can do, but who we are becoming through the technologies we build. In this regard, I wish to note that artificial intelligence, like all human invention, springs from the creative capacity that God has entrusted to us (cf. Antiqua et Nova, 37). This means that technological innovation can be a form of participation in the divine act of creation. As such, it carries an ethical and spiritual weight, for every design choice expresses a vision of humanity. The Church therefore calls all builders of AI to cultivate moral discernment as a fundamental part of their work — to develop systems that reflect justice, solidarity, and a genuine reverence for life.

Your deliberations over these two days illustrate that this work cannot be confined to research labs or investment portfolios. It must be a profoundly ecclesial endeavor. 

Whether designing algorithms for Catholic education, tools for compassionate healthcare, or creative platforms that tell the Christian story with truth and beauty, each participant contributes to a shared mission: to place technology at the service of evangelization and the integral development of every person. Such interdisciplinary collaboration embodies “the dialogue between faith and reason,” (ibid., 83) renewed in the digital epoch and affirming that intelligence — whether artificial or human — finds its fullest meaning in love, freedom and relationship with God.

With these sentiments, I entrust the work of this Forum to the loving intercession of Mary, Seat of Wisdom. May your collaboration bear fruit in an AI that reflects the Creator’s design: intelligent, relational and guided by love. May the Lord bless your efforts and make them a sign of hope for the whole human family.

From the Vatican, 3 November 2025
LEO PP. XIV

That letter is the sound of the Church door opening to the AI and robotics age, and we cannot claim to serve the Church if we refuse to walk through it.

The Holy Father has just told us that ‘innovation’ in the area of Catholic AI can be understood as “participation in the divine act of creation”. That phrase should stop us in our tracks. 

If this technology is a reflection of the “creative capacity that God has entrusted to us”, then the proposition to “delete” it is no longer just a critique of a tool. It’s a refusal of a vocation.

I understand and respect the fear that many have. The desire to protect the faith from mysterious new forces we are struggling to grasp is reasonable. 

Having said that, we need to remember whose ultimate responsibility it is to safeguard the faith.

What matters is what the Church is actually asking us to do. And the Church has just spoken.

We live on a ‘digital continent’ where confusion is king. When a seeker has a question about God today, they don’t normally walk into a church; they type a question into a prompt bar. 

For too long, the only answers they found came from secular companies whose top priority is not fidelity to the Gospel, to the Magisterium.

We built Magisterium AI to fix that. We didn’t build it to replace the shepherd, but to help guide the sheep. We built it so that when a digital seeker knocks, the door to the treasury of the faith is opened—instantly and faithfully.

The Pope’s letter changes the entire landscape of this debate. 

He does not view this technology as something to be deleted. He calls it a “profoundly ecclesial endeavor”. That means this is Church work. He specifically lists what we must build: “algorithms for Catholic education” and “creative platforms that tell the Christian story”.

This is exactly the work we are doing.

There is an important difference between a personal preference and a Church teaching. It’s perfectly fine if you, personally, don’t want to use AI in some area of your life. But there is a huge difference between saying ‘I don’t like this’ and declaring ‘The Church mustn’t do this.’

The Pope clearly isn’t asking us to stop. He is asking us to “cultivate moral discernment”. He wants us to build AI systems that are “intelligent, relational and guided by love”.

If we run away from this technology, to borrow a metaphor from the Gospel, we are burying our talents in the ground. 

But if we listen to the Holy Father, we accept the responsibility to build. We accept the mission to ensure that even in the AI and robotics age, our tools “remain oriented toward the dignity of the human person”.

Fear tells us to delete. The Church tells us to build.

Thank you.