The current anxiety surrounding AI‑assisted writing is neither new nor particularly original. It is simply the latest iteration of a recurring cultural reflex: whenever a new intellectual tool emerges, a chorus rises to declare that “real work” is under threat. The same objections were levelled, almost verbatim, against electronic calculators in mathematics classrooms several decades ago.

The recent remarks of Pope Leo XIV urging priests “to resist the temptation to prepare homilies with artificial intelligence” merit careful and extended analysis. His concerns touch on the nature of preaching, the exercise of the intellect, the authenticity of pastoral communication, and the place of technological mediation in ecclesial life. Because the Pope is correct on several foundational points, it is all the more important to examine where his conclusions do not follow and where his diagnosis of artificial intelligence rests on conceptual misunderstandings.