Social Justice
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Pope Leo started a conversation that Silicon Valley cannot ignore
Journalism and Innovation Professor Jeff Jarvis is clear: Pope Leo does not declare war on AI or technology. Those expecting papal condemnation will be disappointed. This encyclical is something rarer — a thoughtful framework for the long conversation ahead, intended not for this moment but for generations.
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Inside the Vatican-Anthropic alliance on AI ethics
Anthropic’s outreach to Catholic voices began with an email introducing an atheist tech founder to a moral theologian. What followed were months of deepening conversations about how centuries of religious wisdom might help shape the behavior of an artificial intelligence model.
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Questions about AI are really religious questions
Every new technology carries an implicit vision of what it means to be human. That makes the deepest questions about AI fundamentally religious ones – even if much of the developed world would prefer the Church stayed silent on matters of profit and progress.
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Shrinking God to fit inside our borders
Pentecost refutes religious nationalism that makes God reliably sympathetic to one culture’s anxieties. The Spirit crossed every boundary human beings had declared permanent, fluent in every tongue that power had dismissed, authorised by no government, and contained by no border.
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Being counter-cultural or just being awkward
From the women’s movement to immigrant rights, faith often finds itself at odds with society in ways that require ensuring these tensions are rooted in justice rather than fear of social change.
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World leaders need more than summits — they need synodality
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s stark warning at Davos about a rupture in the world order has renewed the question of whether world leaders need a new framework — something deeper than summits and UN resolutions — to address a world in crisis.
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Hope wears an apron, not a crown
In a noisy world, service is how faith still speaks. It’s less about what we believe and more about how we live. When words fail — and they often do — a kind gesture says: you matter, and you are not alone.
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The world needs more than just common sense
When “common sense” fails the heart, where do we turn? A look at how imagination allows us to see possibilities that simple precedent cannot offer. By expanding our vision, we find new ways to live with purpose in a difficult, often cynical world.
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What if love doesn’t look away?
Jacinda Ardern declared the Christchurch attacker nameless, embodying our desire to erase those who harm us. But if her compassionate “they are us” extends to victims, what happens when we apply that same lens to perpetrators? The question unsettles our moral categories profoundly.
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The ideology of “the land” and its quiet power over politics and culture
Land is more than physical territory. It holds emotion, memory, and meaning. Across cultures and histories, land becomes a source of identity, pride, and grief. Its importance transcends soil—it shapes who we are, where we belong, and how we understand others and ourselves.
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