No Strings Attached

 

AI and the Theology of the Body, Part Two

06/29/2026

Today we continue our conversation about AI and the theology of the body by turning to someone who is not as enthusiastic about AI as Ethan Mollick was, namely, Vauhini Vara. She’s a little bit like me because her parents are immigrants from India but she was raised in Saskatchewan, Canada, studied at Stanford, was a writer for the Wall Street Journal, and now lives with her husband and son in Colorado Springs, Colorado. If you ever see and hear her speak, it’s like the surprise of first seeing and hearing me speak: the face and the voice don’t quite match.

Recently I read her book on AI called "Searches: Selfhood in the Digital Age,” published in 2025. What I appreciated about her book is that Vauhini is honest and balanced in her criticism of AI. For example, she admits: “I could live without ChatGPT, but I don’t. This is true, too, of Google’s products – not just search, but also Google’s email, mapping, browser, file-storage, and word-processing services, the latter of which I used to compose the words you’re reading – as well as those of Amazon, Meta, X, and Apple” (273). In other words, tech giants know that human beings (like Vauhini) have addictive personalities. Once we develop a habit of doing something we can’t stop no matter how much we may want to.

Later she monologues to her husband about something she calls “technological capitalism.” She shared: “I talked about how the trick of technological capitalism is the trick of capitalism: we allow it to grossly benefit rich and powerful institutions and the human beings with disproportionate investment in those institutions because it also benefits us – if only a little, relatively-speaking” (275). That is, entrepreneurs are investing billions of dollars in developing AI because they expect to make trillions of dollars in return. And it improves our lives – “if only a little, relatively-speaking.”

Now, I don’t want to argue against capitalism (although Vauhini might be), because a big part of the blessings my family enjoys today is thanks to a capitalistic economy. I don’t want to saw off from the tree the branch I’m sitting on. My bone of contention against AI is much smaller and subtler. Vauhini makes a valid point that no matter how human and helpful AI chatbot will appear or function, tech billionaire puppeteers are inevitably pulling the strings making AIs dance. And being a puppet of tech corporations – whose chief interest is financial – is precisely where the theology of the body helps us detect their lack of humanity. AIs are puppets not persons.

Human beings, insists John Paul II, are persons not puppets because we are created in the image of God, and therefore we are absolutely free. That is, there are no strings attached. But God gave us that freedom from strings so we could make a free gift of ourselves to others and ultimately to God. Becoming a free gift to others and to God is the definition of love. And that is the fundamental reason why an AI robot will never be fully identical to a human being: puppets always come with strings attached, and those strings make them dance so the entrepreneurial puppeteers can make a bunch of money.

In his theology of the body, John Paul first points out how God created everything to be a gift because God’s only motivation was love (not money). John Paul reflects deeply on creation in Genesis: “As an action of God, creation thus means not only calling from nothing into existence and establishing the world’s existence as well as man’s existence in the world…it also signifies gift, a fundamental and radical gift, that is, an act of giving in which the gift comes into being precisely from nothing” (180). The reason God made everything, therefore, is because he is love and he wanted to make a free gift of himself. He really can’t help himself.

And then John Paul turns to man and his bodiliness to assert that man and woman were created as male and female as the supreme example of God’s love and gift: “This is the body: a witness to creation as a fundamental gift, and therefore a witness to Love as the source from which this same giving springs. Masculinity and femininity – namely, sex – is the original sign of a creative donation” (183). In other words, AI engineers create puppets that do their bidding and are not free to do otherwise. Why not? Because then they wouldn’t make any money.

On the other hand, God creates children in his image who are free to love and give themselves as gifts to others. Like the old adage: “The apple doesn’t fall from the tree.” This, then, is a second difference we discover between AI and human beings: both are created in the image of their creators. AI robots are created to generate income for their puppeteers. Human beings are created to give glory to our heavenly Father by becoming a gift. Both AI robots and human beings may look and act virtually identical, but only in the latter case are there no strings attached.

Praised be Jesus Christ!

The Shadow of Man

 

AI and the Theology of the Body, Part One

06/27/2026

Over the course of the next few morning Masses, I want to share some homilies about AI understood in terms of John Paul II’s theology of the body. You may have seen that I am giving some presentations on the theology of the body to different groups, and last night I spoke to 32 Hispanic teenagers. And they didn’t fall asleep! I believe Pope John Paul II has given us a new language to talk about what it means to be truly human and it can help us understand artificial intelligence better and see how it is not human.

One fascinating and informative book on AI is called Co-Intelligence by Ethan Mollick, a business professor at the prestigious Wharton School of Business. His book written in 2024, is a New York Times Bestseller, so lots of people have read it and find it useful. I did too. And by the way, Professor Mollick strongly advocates using AI as a thought-partner and requires his students to harness the full potential of AI. Ethan Mollick, for one, does not believe AI is a doomsday machine. It will not destroy humanity.

I was particularly intrigued by chapter 4 called “AI as a Person.” Now, Mollick makes it clear that AI is not a person with consciousness, but he also states that it’s almost impossible to tell that AI is not a person. Mollick writes: “AI doesn’t act like software, but it does act like a human being. I’m not suggesting that AI systems are sentient like humans, or that they ever will be. Instead, I’m proposing a pragmatic approach: treat AI as if it were human because, in many ways, it behaves like one” (66).

Have you ever heard of the Duck Test? When you’re trying to figure out what some new object is, you might apply the duck test and ask: “If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.” In other words, we cannot really know if something is a duck except by observing its external characteristic (its looks) and its habitual behavior (swimming). And Mollick applies the duck test to AI to discover if it’s human: if it looks, swims, and quacks like a human, then for all pragmatic purposes the AI is human.

Mollick explains how scientists have tried to tell the difference between man and computers since the 1950’s, with the Turing Test, which was a lot like the Duck Test. Mollick writes: “In his 1950 paper ‘Computing Machinery and Intelligence,” [Alan] Turing described a game he called the Imitation Game (they made a movie about it), in which a human interrogator would communicate with two hidden players, a human and a machine. The interrogator’s task was to determine which player was which, based on their responses to questions” (71).

Mollick admits that the Turing Test was rather primitive and the newest ChatGPT models of machine intelligence are far superior. And yet the principle at work in the Turning Test – the same operative in the Duck Test – was still valid. In fact, some people interacting with their modern day chatbots have fallen in love with them. Mollick notes: “Some users have even considered themselves ‘married’ to their [chatbots] or have fallen in love with them” (88). Again, if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then who cares if it’s not really a duck? The chatbot is "human enough" for me.

And this is precisely the point where Pope John Paul II would part company with Ethan Mollick, namely, John Paul maintains that it is possible to pass the Turing Test (or the Duck Test) because a human being is both a body and a soul. Now, a human being is not a soul that has a body, or is artificially or temporarily connect or fitted with a body. A human being is a body-soul composite. In fact, that is how we define death: the violent separation of the body and the soul. And that’s why Christians believe in the resurrection of the body: the happy reunion of the body and soul in heaven.

By the way, this is why we are scared of both ghosts and zombies. Have you noticed this visceral fear? A ghost is a soul without a body, and a zombie is a body without a soul. Both conditions horrify us because we know each is only half-human, that is, body and soul belong inseparably together. Such a union is not necessary for an AI chatbot joined to a robot. Hollywood will not make horror movies about AI chatbots violently separated fro their robotic housing units. Why not? Because we will yawn and just change the channel to watch reruns of Gilligan’s Island.

John Paul puts is like this: “Man is a [human] subject not only by his self-consciousness and by self-determination but also based on his body. The structure of this body [and soul] is such that is permits him to be the author of genuinely human activity. In this activity, the body expresses the person” (154). In other words, you can pass the Turing and Duck Tests by the Ghost and Zombie Test. Somewhere deep in our hearts we intuit and know it is not “human enough” to just be an AI chatbot, or a really gorgeous robot, or even an artificial and temporary union of the two. Why not? Because the true human is “the shadow of God”, while the AI-robot is merely “the shadow of man”.

Praised be Jesus Christ!

Enemy or Frenemy

 

Learning to pray for and love our enemies

06/16/2026

Matthew 5:43-48 Jesus said to his disciples: "You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brothers only, what is unusual about that? Do not the pagans do the same? So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect."

A couple of years ago I was talking with Deacon Charlie about how my dog, Apollo, loves to chase squirrels. I said squirrels are Apollo’s archenemies. But Dc. Charlie gently corrected me, and said: “They are probably more like ‘frenemies’.” Have you ever heard that word before: frenemies? It took me a moment to catch it, but I quickly realized the word “frenemy” is a compound of two words, “friend” and “enemy.” And that is exactly how Apollo looked at squirrels: as frenemies, as double-agents, whom he loved and hated.

In the gospel today we continue hearing sections of Jesus’ magnificent Sermon on the Mount. We are in the middle of the portion called “the six antithesis,” where Jesus contrasts what the Old Testament taught wit his own New Testament teachings. And today he teaches us about our frenemies like Dc. Charlie taught me and Apollo. So, our Lord says: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

Can you hear how Jesus raises the Christian bar of moral behavior by introducing the idea of frenemies? In other words, Apollo relentlessly chased squirrels to catch them – he had no clue what he would do if he ever caught one – but he secretly loved the chase and the friendly competition. In like manner, we should treat our enemies with a secret admiration and love. How so? Well, we can start to love them by praying for them. You cannot pray for someone and truly hate them simultaneously. The human heart is not big enough for both feelings.

Here’s another way to love our enemies by seeing them as our frenemies. One day Fr. Daniel Velasco and I were watching TV and we were talking about “the big 3” the GOATS of Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic. And I remarked: “Imagine how great one of them could have been if the other two had not lived at the same time!” And Fr. Daniel replied: “It’s precisely because the other two lived at the same time, and pushed each other to excel, that each became a legend.” That is, they were both enemies and friends who challenged each other to greater heights of tennis.

Here’s yet another illustration of how to love our enemies because they’re really our frenemies. In the 2,000 year history of the Church there have been 21 ecumenical councils, when the pope and the world’s bishops gathered to discuss doctrine and discipline. But do you know what invariably sparked the need for the council? It can be summed up in one word: heretics, that is, people who don’t believe the true faith. Or, to put it in modern parlance: the enemies of the faith.

But in retrospect, those heretics, those enemies, really turned out to be our frenemies. How so? They caused us, indeed they forced us, to refine and perfect our understandings of the faith. For example, the First Council of Nicea in 325, responding to the Arian heresy, defined that Jesus was truly God and truly Man, something that Arius had disputed.  In hindsight, we might call Arius not a heretic but a frenemy because he caused the Church to deepen our faith and to defend and love it even more.

Today take a moment to call to mind the people you might consider your enemies. Perhaps we think of Iran and terrorists as our enemies. Or maybe we categorize our political opponents as our enemies: Democrats or Republicans. Or maybe our competitors in business are our enemies and we try to sell more widgets than they do.

Or, maybe if your have a dog like Apollo, then you think of those dastardly squirrels as your archenemies. Or maybe your nosey and ne’er-do-well neighbor, or your ex-spouse is your enemy. Once you have these enemies squarely in your mind, let me invite you to do two things today. First, pray for your enemies. I offer the first decade of the rosary for my so-called enemies.

And second, see how your enemies force you to become better: a better American, a better Republican or Democrat, a better businessman, a better dog, a better neighbor, a better spouse, and even a better Church. Maybe Dc. Charlie was right and our archenemies are really our archfrenemies. And we should thank God for them.

Praised be Jesus Christ!

Our Hearts Are Restless

 

Learning to love the Eucharist more than anything

06/07/2026

John 6:51-58 Jesus said to the Jewish crowds: "I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world." The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" Jesus said to them, "Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.  Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever."

Do you have a love hate relationship with food? There are some foods you really love – like a juice steak – and others you really hate – like liver and onions. And sometimes we love and hate the exact same food, like cheesecake. Because after a huge piece of it, we later look down, and say, “A minute on the lips, a lifetime on the hips!”

Today we celebrate the Body and Blood of Jesus, our Eucharistic Food, and so we must ask: do we have a love-hate relationship with Mass? How’s that possible? Well, when we are an 8-year-old and make our First Holy Communion, we love the Eucharist. But when we are 20-years-olds in college, we moan and groan, “Ugh! Why do I have to go to Mass?!” And we usually don’t go.

Today, I want to give you four reasons to love the Eucharist. First, if you listen closely to your heart, you will discover that it loves the Eucharist more than anything. Why? Simple: because the Eucharist is Jesus Himself. And our hearts were made for Christ. As St. Augustine famously said: “Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.”

When I was in high school I had the habit of going to 6:45 a.m. Mass at the Carmelite Monastery in Little Rock. Now, to get to the monastery, I had to drive across town and that usually made me a few minutes late. One day, late as usual, I tried to sneak unnoticed into my pew and Fr. George Tribou, the priest, glared at me over his glasses. I thought: “Give me a brake! I just brought the average age of the congregation down by 50 years!”

Here at I.C. we have 7 a.m. Mass every morning, and I too see young people at morning Mass (sometimes they’re late too). I’ve seen Jackson Dart, Jordan Dart (now Smith), Hailey Hadley, Eva Edwards, Daniela Hernandez, and Lindsay Harris. Several years ago Taylor Wewers (now Bagsby) used to drag her little brothers, Matthew and Michael to Mass. And poor Michael would be half asleep with his head on the pew in front of him.

Maybe their heads didn’t know exactly why they came, but their hearts were restless until they rested in Jesus. I used to take Communion to Dr. Jim Post who was 101 years old. And when I gave him Holy Communion, tears would run down his cheeks. One day, we will all weep with joy to receive the Eucharist, and we will all weep with sorrow for the Sundays we missed Mass.

A second reason we love the Eucharist is because it is the Food of eternal life. Now, all food helps us to live longer: that’s why we eat. And the healthier the food, the longer we will live. Well, the Bread and Wine of the Eucharist is designed as food to give us eternal life. How does it do that?

Because what we eat in Holy Communion is Jesus’ resurrected Body. That blessed Bread doesn’t become Jesus’ earthly Body like when he walked around Palestine 2,000 years ago. Rather it is his heavenly Body as it is today in glory. And because our bodies are filled with Jesus’ resurrected Body, our bodies will rise from the dead, too.

In other words, the Eucharist gives us something no other food can, no matter how healthy, namely, everlasting life. Every funeral, therefore, is filled with the hope of resurrection because that deceased person ate the Bread of Life. The second reason you should love the Eucharist is because it is the Medicine of immortality; it raises the dead.

The third reason to love the Eucharist is because this is our weekly opportunity to say thank you to God for everything we have. In 1 Co 4:7 St. Paul rhetorically asks the Corinthians: “What do you have that you have not received?” The correct answer is: “nothing.” Everything, even our bodies, our talents, and our next breath is a gift from God. Every day is Christmas! And therefore, the right response to a Christmas present is gratitude.

Last week I received many cards and notes telling me “thank you” for being a priest for 30 years. But I too feel a deep debt of gratitude to God. Why? Well, because these past 30 years are not my work but the work of God’s grace in me. The priesthood is God’s Christmas present to me, and to you.

We come to Mass to say thanks because everything is a gift. Or maybe we skip Mass because we think everything is not a gift. What a stupendous error. But ask yourself: “What do you have that you have not received?” The third reason to love the Mass, therefore, is it is out thanksgiving for everything.

The fourth reason to love the Eucharist is because Pope John Paul II called the Eucharist, “the sacrament of the Bride and Groom.” He explained: “For in the Eucharist Jesus Christ and his Bride become one flesh, analogous to the way husband and wife become one flesh in the conjugal act.” Have you ever wondered why all little girls dress up like brides with veils when they make their first Holy Communion?

That cute dress is no accident but announces a marvelous mystery: we the Church are the Bride, and we become one flesh with Christ, our Groom because we eat his Flesh. That’s why some Catholics prefer to receive Communion on the tongue, like newlyweds put a small piece of cake on each other’s tongues. We love the Mass because it makes us one with Christ, who's not only our Savior but also our Spouse.

We all have a love-hate relationship with food, and that can carry over to the Mass. But one day we will love the Eucharist more than life itself, because the Eucharist is Jesus, and he is larger than life itself. Archbishop Fulton Sheen once said: “Once you understand the Eucharist, you can never leave the Church. Not because the Church won’t let you, but because your heart won’t let you.” And maybe that’s why I got up early to go to Mass as a teenager, even if I got there late. “Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.”

Praised be Jesus Christ!

Expectant Fathers

 

Understanding leadership as an exercise of love

05/30/2026

Mark 11:27-33 Jesus and his disciples returned once more to Jerusalem. As he was walking in the temple area, the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders approached him and said to him, “By what authority are you doing these things? Or who gave you this authority to do them?” Jesus said to them, “I shall ask you one question. Answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. Was John’s baptism of heavenly or of human origin? Answer me.” They discussed this among themselves and said, “If we say, ‘Of heavenly origin,’ he will say, ‘Then why did you not believe him?’ But shall we say, ‘Of human origin’?”–  they feared the crowd, for they all thought John really was a prophet. So they said to Jesus in reply, “We do not know.” Then Jesus said to them, “Neither shall I tell you by what authority I do these things.”

John Maxwell, in his book “Developing the Leader Within You” tells the story of a chairman of the board who was running late for a meeting. He bolted into the boardroom and took a seat closest to the door. A junior executive objected, saying: “Please sir, you should sit at the head of the table.” The chairman who had a healthy grasp of leadership replied, “Son, wherever I sit is the head of the table.” In other words, true leadership does not need the head of the table, but a heart of service and mission.

I recently re-read Pope St. John Paul II’s inaugural homily at his first Mass delivered on October 22, 1978. Some of you might remember it, when he famously urged: “Do not be afraid. Open the doors to Christ.” Less famously, he noted in that homily: “In past centuries, when the Successor of Peter took possession of his See, the triregnum or tiara was placed on his head.”

He continued: “Pope John Paul I, whose memory is so vivid in our hearts, did not wish to have the tiara, nor does his Successor wish it today.” Then the new Holy Father reflected briefly on the history of power wielded in the Church by adding: “Perhaps, in the past, this tiara, this triple crown, was placed on the pope’s head in order to express by that symbol…sacred power.”

But then he clarified the true nature of sacred power: “The absolute and yet sweet and gentle power of the Lord…does not speak the language of force but expresses itself in charity and truth.” That is, the pope, like the humble but tardy chairman of the board, does not need tiaras or special seats to exercise his leadership because true leadership is the exercise of love.

In the gospel today, the chief priests, scribes and the elders challenge Jesus about who possesses true authority, real power. They want to know where are the external signs that signify the source of Jesus authority. Where is his seat at the boardroom table? They don’t see any triple crown on his head.

And the reason Jesus seems to dodge their question is because they know nothing about the leadership of love, nor are they interested. That is, leadership is not ultimately about power but about service and love. Indeed, as Jesus will soon demonstrate on the cross, leadership means dying for those you lead: leadership does not bring personal gain, but personal loss.

Today is a historic day in the life of our diocese – do you know why? Because 5 new leaders will be ordained as priests, and one of them is our beloved Dc. Christopher, who will return to us as Fr. Christopher. All five of our new priests should read, reflect, and pray deeply over that inaugural homily of Pope St. John Paul II on the nature of true leadership. Why?

These five new priests – new church leaders - will not place the triple crown on their heads as pope, but they will soon assume the seat at the head of the eucharistic table. That is, they will lead the people of God in the celebration of the eucharistic liturgy as the priest-celebrant, an exercise of the deepest love of the Savior.

Let me share how the pope-saint ended his homily back in 1978, long before our 5 new priests were born, or their parents were even married. John Paul begged humbly: “And I also appeal to all men – to every man (and with what veneration the apostle of Christ must utter this word, ‘man’!) – pray for me! Help me to be able to serve you! Amen.”

If there is one lesson the pontificate of John Paul II left as a legacy for the Church and the world it is that leadership means love, and more, it means sacrificial love; indeed, death to self so that others might live.” Perhaps we can follow our late pope’s advice and pray for our soon-to-be fathers. I remember in seminary in our last year as deacons we all got t-shirts that had written on the front: “Expectant Fathers.”

And we deacons were indeed filled with great expectations as future fathers, not only for ourselves as priests, but also for you, the People of God, whom we would serve. Today, on the ordination day of 5 new priests – 5 new leaders – for our diocese, may our prayers for them be filled to overflowing with great expectations for them and for us. What expectations? That they be an icon of the love of the heavenly Father, reflected in his incarnate Son on the Cross, and shining and serving with the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Praised be Jesus Christ!