Oct 31, 2025
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Fr. Kenny Ang, Research Professor in Dogmatic Theology at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome, published a paper in Scientia et Fides in October 2025 titled:
“Magisterium AI in Theological Inquiry and Religious Education: Challenges and Emerging Horizons.”
The full text of the paper can be found here. Additionally, a video of Fr. Ang’s pre-print presentation at a May 5, 2025 event hosted by Longbeard at the Pontifical Gregorian University can be found below.
Situated within the framework of the Church’s ethical teachings on technology, Fr. Ang offers a critical evaluation of Magisterium AI, arguing that its development requires not only a sophisticated “hierarchy of sources” to manage its database but also features that engage with Christian culture and art to ensure the system truly serves human formation rather than merely retrieving data.
Of particular note are two areas of exploration.
Stress Testing
Fr. Ang compares Magisterium AI to several other generative AI platforms, using complex and detailed prompts to measure the extent to which various platforms could engage with nuanced topics.
Magisterium AI demonstrated a robust capacity for generating nuanced and well-considered responses that successfully navigated complex theological tensions. The system excelled at reconciling apparent contradictions, such as harmonizing Pope Francis’s remarks on interreligious dialogue with traditional documents like Dominus Iesus and contextualizing Aquinas’s views on the death penalty within the framework of doctrinal development, exhibiting greater structure and comprehensiveness than other platforms.
Furthermore, when addressing historical canonical anomalies regarding ordination by abbots, Magisterium AI provided a historically accurate and chemically sound explanation consistent with traditional theology, avoiding the categorical and historically unsound errors committed by other AI systems.
Source Library and Document Hierarchy
Fr. Kenny Ang argues that constructing a faithful Catholic AI requires a sophisticated understanding of the “gradations of truth,” rejecting the simplistic view that only formal “magisterial documents” (like encyclicals) are valid sources. He utilizes a schematic framework to illustrate that the Magisterium is not a monolith, but rather a complex hierarchy of authority involving different objects, modalities, and degrees of infallibility.

Because the Magisterium does not cover every historical or theological detail, Fr. Ang concludes that the database must stretch beyond the technical bounds of magisterial writing to include theologians, philosophers, and historians. To manage this massive, diverse dataset without creating confusion, he proposes three guiding principles for the AI’s hierarchy:
Feb 18, 2026