The de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture hosted the Vatican’s Dicastery for Culture and Education and its Center for Digital Culture during its fourth Plenary Meeting on Ethics for AI at the University of Notre Dame, July 9–11, 2025. Under the leadership of Bishop Paul Tighe, secretary of the dicastery's Culture section, the working group met to discuss ethical issues surrounding artificial intelligence in relation to education and human agency, work on two forthcoming publications, and engage with Notre Dame experts and students.

“The de Nicola Center is proud to continue our long history of supporting the Church’s scholarly reflection across the disciplines on the vital issues of the day,” said Jennifer Newsome Martin, director of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture and the John J. Cavanaugh Professor of the Humanities at the University of Notre Dame. “Pope Leo XIV has argued that Catholic social thought can serve as a response ‘to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defense of human dignity, justice, and labor.’ The conversations taking place during this meeting at Notre Dame are a substantive contribution to the Church’s pastoral response to these challenges.”

Members of the AI working group span a range of disciplines, including theology, philosophy, computer science, education, and business. This is the third in-person meeting for the group, which has been meeting primarily via Zoom since 2020. The scholars represent institutions across the United States and Canada, including the University of Notre Dame, Boston College, Santa Clara University, the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology, Loyola University Chicago, Villanova University, Duquesne University, Mount St. Mary's University, Benedictine College, Hillsdale College, Seattle University, the College of St. Benedict and St. John's University, Mount Marty University, and the University of Laval.

“We are currently working on two books: one on how AI is related to and can impact human agency, and another that considers the unique challenges for education in the age of AI,” said Mariele Courtois, assistant professor of theology at Benedictine College and alumna of the Sorin Fellows program at the de Nicola Center. “We have been working on these documents over the course of the last two years. This plenary meeting allowed us to discuss how the various parts of our respective projects are coming together cohesively, to receive feedback across the two groups and from outside scholars, and to plan our next steps for further projects.”

The meeting included a public panel with four members of the working group to discuss the impact of AI on the dignity of work from the perspective of the Catholic tradition. Chaired by Paul Scherz, Our Lady of Guadalupe Professor of Theology and mission fellow of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture, panelists included Courtois; John Slattery of Duquesne University; and Luis Vera of Mount St. Mary’s University.

“It is important for these questions surrounding AI and technology, which affect how human beings live their lives and engage with the rest of creation, to consider what human beings are and what the depths of the human heart longs for,” said Courtois. “The body of Catholic Social Teaching is particularly relevant for its history of responding to technological changes. Catholic Social Teaching seeks to protect human dignity and to help humans to discover and to live their vocations in care for those in need amidst a shifting landscape of new technologies, social structures, and international dynamics. From many fields and perspectives, our world is grappling with concerns for how AI could be used to impede these goals to seek the common good, as well as how it could be used in service to these goals. As Catholic Social Teaching repeatedly reminds us, these problems always have a spiritual foundation and cannot be navigated without a concern for the soul.”

The working group also heard presentations from Notre Dame experts, including Tom Stapleford (Program of Liberal Studies and faculty fellow of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture), Brett Robinson (McGrath Institute for Church Life), Rev. Nate Wills, C.S.C. (Alliance for Catholic Education), Megan Levis Scheirer (Institute for Social Concerns and College of Engineering), Walter Scheirer (College of Engineering), Rev. Javier Prades Lopez (visiting professor at the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture), and Louisa Conwill (Ph.D. candidate, College of Engineering, and Sorin Fellow of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture).

"The AI Working Group sessions were tremendously productive," said Scherz. "Writing a book with 12 other academics is a challenge, and there are a lot of questions that are best ironed out in face-to-face meetings. We had some fascinating conversations about the vocation of the teacher in the age of AI, how AI shapes our ability to act, and how we should think about educating students for the future world of work. We also discussed our next two projects, one exploring AI and labor, building on some of the concerns that Pope Leo expressed. The other will discuss the different visions of the human person that one finds in culture today—like transhumanist understandings of the person—and how they do and do not align with the Catholic vision."

The Dicastery meetings were cosponsored by the McGrath Institute for Church Life and supported by a grant from the Franco Family Institute for Liberal Arts and the Public Good in the Notre Dame College of Arts & Letters.