Pope Leo lauds journalism in comments about Catholic church abuse; The Hill, June 21, 2025

AMALIA HUOT-MARCHAND , The Hill; Pope Leo lauds journalism in comments about Catholic church abuse

"“Your fight for justice is also the Church’s fight. A faith that does not touch the wounds of the human body and soul has not yet understood the Gospel,” he added.

He also stressed the importance of independent journalism for society.

“In this time of deep institutional and social tensions, defending free and ethical journalism is not only an act of justice, but a duty for all who aspire to a strong and participatory democracy,” he wrote.

Sexual abuse continues to plague the Catholic Church. Although Pope Francis began to take away the taboo of abuse within church walls, victims are seeking more recognition and action from Pope Leo such as a zero-tolerance policy.

Leo has already made the free press a cause for which he is willing to fight.

On May 12, Pope Leo called for the release of unlawfully detained journalists all over the world and defended the importance of free speech and press."

In inauguration, Leo urges end to division: It’s ‘the hour for love’; The Washington Post, May 18, 2025

 

Anthony Faiola

 and 

Stefano Pitrelli, 

The Washington Post; In inauguration, Leo urges end to division: It’s ‘the hour for love’

"The Catholic Church inaugurated its 267th pope in an incense-laced rite heralding the start of a novel papacy — one filled by a White Sox fan, former missionary and dual citizen of the United States and Peru who sought to position himself Sunday as a humble unifier in an age of arrogance, hatred and division...

On Sunday, Leo again struck upon one of his early themes: unity, a word widely used by conservative Catholics who had sought a more traditional pope after Francis’s less doctrinally focused papacy. At Mass, Leo echoed the need for “unity” — but suggested it must also “coexist” with another word embraced by church liberals: “diversity.”

He called on the faithful to aid the marginalized and the poor and declared that religion and faith should not be heaved on others “by force.”

“This is the missionary spirit that must animate us; not closing ourselves off in our small groups, nor feeling superior to the world. We are called to offer God’s love to everyone, in order to achieve that unity which does not cancel out differences but values the personal history of each person and the social and religious culture of every people,” Leo said."

Trump posts AI-generated photo of himself as pope, drawing internet outrage; Reuters, May 3, 2025

Andrea Shalal , Reuters; Trump posts AI-generated photo of himself as pope, drawing internet outrage

"President Donald Trump posted an AI-generated photo showing himself as the pope ahead of this week's gathering of cardinals to choose a new leader of the 1.4-billion-strong Catholic Church, and just days after he joked he would "like to be pope".

Trump, who is not a Catholic and does not attend church regularly, posted the image on his Truth Social platform late on Friday, less than a week after attending the funeral of Pope Francis, who died at 88 last month. The White House then reposted it on its official X account."

Analysis: Pope Francis' legacy marked by reform efforts and outreach to 'marginalized' people; ABC News, April 21, 2025

Phoebe Natanson , ABC News; Analysis: Pope Francis' legacy marked by reform efforts and outreach to 'marginalized' people

""God is not afraid of new things! That is why he is continually surprising us, opening our hearts and guiding us in unexpected ways."

So declared Pope Francis in October 2014, just over a year-and-a-half after he was elected, as he beatified Pope Paul VI, who led the Catholic Church nearly two generations earlier...

Pope Francis, who died on Monday, called for "a church for the poor," a church that would reach out to what he called the "peripheries." He called for a humble, more merciful and inclusive church, and repeatedly remembered the "marginalized" people in society.

His papacy brought a series of firsts to the role, which endeared him to people all over the world. Among these: He was the first to take the name Francis, after the medieval friar St. Francis of Assisi, who vowed to live in poverty."

‘AI Jesus’ avatar tests man’s faith in machines and the divine; AP, November 28, 2024

JAMEY KEATEN, AP; ‘AI Jesus’ avatar tests man’s faith in machines and the divine

"Researchers and religious leaders on Wednesday released findings from a two-month experiment through art in a Catholic chapel in Switzerland, where an avatar of “Jesus” on a computer screen — tucked into a confessional — took questions by visitors on faith, morality and modern-day woes, and offered responses based on Scripture...

Philipp Haslbauer, an IT specialist at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts who pulled together the technical side of the project, said the AI responsible for taking the role of “AI Jesus” and generating responses was GPT-4o by OpenAI, and an open-source version of the company’s Whisper was used for speech comprehension. 

An AI video generator from Heygen was used to produce voice and video from a real person, he said. Haslbauer said no specific safeguards were used “because we observed GPT-4o to respond fairly well to controversial topics.”

Visitors broached many topics, including true love, the afterlife, feelings of solitude, war and suffering in the world, the existence of God, plus issues like sexual abuse cases in the Catholic Church or its position on homosexuality.

Most visitors described themselves as Christians, though agnostics, atheists, Muslims, Buddhists and Taoists took part too, according to a recap of the project released by the Catholic parish of Lucerne.

About one-third were German speakers, but “AI Jesus” — which is conversant in about 100 languages — also had conversations in languages like Chinese, English, French, Hungarian, Italian, Russian and Spanish."