Founded in 937 by Saint Odon, abbot of Cluny, the Abbey of Saint-Vincent de Chantelle is located in the Auvergne region of France. With its Romanesque church and cloister, this Benedictine abbey sits in one of the most beautiful landscapes of Bourbonnais. In this peaceful setting, the Benedictine nuns create

ROME (CNS) -– Pope Leo XIV said artificial intelligence should support the church's mission of evangelization, urging Catholic technologists and venture capitalists gathered in Rome to build systems that help spread the Gospel.

"Whether designing algorithms for Catholic education, tools for compassionate health care, or creative platforms that tell the Christian story with truth and beauty, each participant contributes to a shared mission: to place technology at the service of evangelization and the integral development of every person," the pope wrote.

Pope Leo's message was read aloud Nov. 7 by Jesuit Father David Nazar during the 2025 Builders AI Forum, a two-day summit for idea-sharing and collaboration hosted at the Pontifical Gregorian University. 

Since the beginning of his pontificate, the pope has emphasized the need for ethically grounded AI, but his message to the conference marked the first time he directly linked the technology's promise to the church's missionary work.

Forum organizers said the stakes are high, as AI tools increasingly shape how people seek meaning online.

"There are billions of people who do not yet know Christ and the truth that Christianity fully possesses," said Matthew Sanders, a Catholic AI developer and one of the event's organizers. "If the church's guiding hand is not there, this technology has the power to do unimaginable harm, amplifying confusion and despair."

Registration materials listed roughly 200 participants, including software engineers, venture capital partners, Catholic media producers, bishops and Vatican communications officials. The forum was structured as a working summit rather than a public conference, with most discussions held in small-group workshops.

The registration list included representatives from Microsoft, Palantir Technologies and Goldman Sachs, alongside Catholic filmmakers and ministry leaders. Actor and producer Lorenzo Henrie -- who is currently co-financing and starring as an apostle in Mel Gibson's "The Resurrection of the Christ," now filming in Italy -- was also listed among those participating.

After opening remarks, participants broke into six working groups, each tasked with addressing a specific challenge. Topics ranged from AI in Catholic education to whether the church should attempt to devise a "Catholic Turing Test" for identifying signs of consciousness in advanced systems.

Interest appeared particularly strong in the "Building and Scaling Catholic AI" workshop, which drew about half of the forum's participants, and was focused on using AI for evangelization.

"We're starting to leverage AI to impart the truth of the Catholic faith," Sanders told Catholic News Service Nov. 6. "But there's more to the faith than just imparting truth. There's the pastoral, human dimension," he said.

A recurring concern was how to help people move from digital encounters with Catholic content into lived parish life. 

Sanders noted that many users first encounter Catholic teaching through apps such as Hallow or Magisterium AI. Without support, he said, new believers may struggle to find a worshiping community.

"The question is how do we 'off-ramp' people from products like Magisterium AI and help ensure that they can find either a community or show them how the faith is lived," Sanders said.

The goal, he added, is to connect people to a tradition or practice that resonates -- whether Eucharistic adoration, charismatic Mass or the Latin Mass -- so they are accompanied rather than left isolated.

In another workshop, "AI for Faithful Christian Storytelling in Media," filmmakers, writers and digital creators discussed how AI might help broaden the reach of Catholic narratives.

For Eike Petersen of Aid to the Church in Need, the problem is not a lack of meaningful stories but a lack of visibility.

"From a communications perspective, there's so much good work the church is doing for persecuted Christians around the world," Petersen told participants. "But this is really something I think we can scale with AI."

Petersen said he hoped the workshop would clarify "what the technology is that's needed for that and how to approach it," particularly in regions where digital outreach could expand awareness and solidarity.
 

"He loved Saint Michael. So every time he put this on, he felt like it was his armor." - Erika Kirk

The month of November is dedicated to the Souls in Purgatory. We as the living so often soon forget the dead. We forget when we live, we are forgotten when we die. "Lay my body anywhere," pleaded the dying St. Monica with her son, St. Augustine, "only this I beg of you: remember me at the altar of God."

"In our prayers, let us not forget sinners and the poor souls in Purgatory, especially our poor relatives." - Saint Bernadette

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Leo XIV welcomed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to the Vatican to celebrate the 10th anniversary of a Vatican-Palestinian agreement recognizing the State of Palestine and guaranteeing the freedom of the Catholic Church in the territory.

"During the cordial talks, it was recognized that there is an urgent need to provide assistance to the civilian population in Gaza and to end the conflict by pursuing a two-State solution," the Vatican said in a statement released after the 30-minute meeting Nov. 6.

While it was their first meeting in person, Pope Leo and Abbas had spoken by telephone in July when the fighting was still raging in Gaza and the humanitarian disaster was increasingly intense. 

The Palestinian Authority claims Gaza as part of its territory and controlled the region before Hamas took over in 2007. Abbas, who has been the president of Palestine since 2005, belongs to the Fatah party, which has been in an ongoing conflict with Hamas.

Speaking to reporters Nov. 4, Pope Leo said he was thankful that the first phase of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire was continuing even though it was "very fragile."

But he also was asked about Israelis expanding settlements in the West Bank and settlers threatening Palestinian villagers and provoking tensions by going up to the square outside the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, the third holiest site in Islam.

Al-Aqsa is located on what is known to Muslims as the Haram al-Sharif and to Jews as the Temple Mount, where the two biblical Jewish Temples stood. 

"The theme of the West Bank and these settlers is really complicated," Pope Leo told reporters. "Israel says one thing and then does another sometimes. We want to try to work together for justice for all people."

Soon after arriving in Rome Nov. 5, Abbas went to the Basilica of St. Mary Major and laid a bouquet of white roses on the tomb of Pope Francis.

"I came to see Pope Francis because I cannot forget what he did for Palestine and for the Palestinian people," he told reporters, "and I cannot forget that he recognized Palestine without anyone having to ask him to do so."

With the signing in 2015 of the "Comprehensive Agreement between the Holy See and the State of Palestine," the Holy See officially recognized the state of Palestine and restated its longtime support of a "two-state solution" to tensions in the Holy Land with both Israel and Palestine enjoying sovereignty, security and defined borders.
 

The Roman Martyrology commemorates St. Leonard of Limoges (d. 559). He was a hermit-abbot who was a convert of St. Remigius. He was a French courtier offered a bishopric, but became a recluse at Micy, France. He then lived at Limoges, France, and he was given land by the royal court on which he founded Noblac Abbey, later called Saint-Leonard.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Catholics in immigration detention centers have "spiritual rights" that Catholic clergy should be allowed to serve, Pope Leo XIV said.

Speaking briefly with reporters late Nov. 4 outside his residence in Castel Gandolfo, Pope Leo was asked about a detention facility in Chicago denying access Nov. 1 to an auxiliary bishop and a delegation of clergy, religious sisters and laity, who wanted to bring Communion to Catholics detained there.

The pope was also asked about the increasing tensions between the United States and Venezuela and about the case of Father Marko Rupnik, an artist accused of multiple cases of abuse.

On the question of the Chicago detention facility, Pope Leo prefaced his remarks by noting how, at his Mass at a Rome cemetery Nov. 1, the Gospel reading was from Matthew 25 with its litany of feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger and clothing the naked. The Lord says, "Whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me." 

"Jesus says very clearly that at the end of the world, we're going to be asked, you know, 'How did you receive the foreigner? Did you receive him and welcome him or not?' And I think that there's a deep reflection that needs to be made in terms of what's happening" with how immigrants in the United States are being treated today, the pope said.

"Many people who've lived (in the United States) for years and years and years, never causing problems, have been deeply affected by what's going on right now," he added.

Pope Leo said he would like to ask "the authorities to allow pastoral workers to attend to the needs of those people. Many times they've been separated from their families for a good amount of time; no one knows what's happening, but their own spiritual needs should be attended to."

Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for public affairs for the Department of Homeland Security, said in a statement to OSVNews that the Broadview facility in Chicago is "a field office, it is not a detention facility."

"Illegal aliens are only briefly held there for processing before being transferred to a detention facility. Religious organizations are more than welcome to provide services to detainees in ICE detention facilities," McLaughlin said, but not at field offices where "detainees are continuously brought in, processed, and transferred out."

Pope Leo also was asked what he thought about the United States sending warships to the Caribbean, particularly off the coast of Venezuela. President Donald Trump has said the deployment is part of his effort to stop drug traffickers. 

"A country has the right to have a military to defend peace, to build peace," the pope said. "But in this case, it seems a bit different -- tensions are rising. Just five minutes ago, I read some news saying that they're getting closer and closer to the coast of Venezuela."

"I think that with violence, we don't win," the pope said. "The important thing is to seek dialogue, to try in a fair way to find solutions to the problems that may exist in any country."

The last question the pope took before driving back to the Vatican regarded requests by the alleged victims of Father Rupnik to have his mosaics covered up or removed from churches around the world, something the pope noted had been occurring. 

The priest, an artist and former Jesuit, has been accused of sexually, spiritually and psychologically abusing more than 20 women -- many of them members of a religious community he co-founded -- over a span of four decades.

The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith announced in early October that it had appointed judges to form the tribunal for the priest's canonical trial.

"I know it's very difficult for the victims to ask that they be patient, but the church needs to respect the rights of all people," the pope told reporters. "The principle of innocent until proven guilty is also true in the church and hopefully this trial that is just beginning will be able to give some clarity and justice to all those involved."

Earlier in the day, journalists had asked Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the doctrinal dicastery, about the status of the trial and when it might conclude.

"They are working," he said. "They are working independently" so he could not provide details about whether they had begun listening to witnesses or how long the trial might take.

The dicastery had said in October that "the panel of judges is composed of women and clerics who are not members of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and who hold no office within any of the dicasteries of the Roman Curia."

"This has been done in order to better ensure, as in every judicial proceeding, the autonomy and independence of the aforesaid tribunal," it said. 
 

"In the communion of saints, 'a perennial link of charity exists between the faithful who have already reached their heavenly home, those who are expiating their sins in purgatory and those who are still pilgrims on earth. between them there is, too, an abundant exchange of all good things.' In this wonderful exchange, the holiness of one profits others, well beyond the harm that the sin of one could cause others. Thus recourse to the communion of saints lets the contrite sinner be more promptly and efficaciously purified of the punishments for sin." (CCC 1475).

WASHINGTON - As world leaders gather for the 30th annual United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30), the bishop chairmen who lead committees of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) that address climate policy were joined by the president and CEO of Catholic Relief Services (CRS) to call for urgent, courageous action to protect God’s creation and people. 

Archbishop Borys Gudziak, Bishop A. Elias Zaidan, and Mr. Sean Callahan’s statement follows: 

“This year’s COP30 convenes while the Catholic Church celebrates the Jubilee Year of Hope.   Pope Leo XIV called for the participants of COP30 to ‘listen to the cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor, families, indigenous peoples, involuntary migrants and believers throughout the world.’ This jubilee year is a sacred opportunity to restore relationships and renew creation at a time when the gift of life is under grave threat. Climate change, biodiversity loss, and environmental degradation are devastating communities already burdened by poverty and exclusion. Farming and fishing families confront threats to their livelihoods; Indigenous Peoples face destruction of their ancestral lands; children’s health, safety, and futures are at risk. Failing to steward God’s creation, ignores our responsibility as one human family.

“A decade ago, in Laudato si’, Pope Francis reminded us that the climate is a common good, belonging to all and meant for all, and that intergenerational solidarity is not optional.  We call on world leaders to act urgently and courageously for an ambitious Paris Agreement implementation that protects God’s creation and people. As all of us are impacted, so must we all be responsible for addressing this global challenge. 

“At COP30, countries, along with civil society organizations and corporations, should recommit to implementation that: invests in adaptation efforts to create resilience and foster economic opportunities; commits to bold mitigation efforts that reduce climate warming emissions; pledges loss and damage financing that guarantees priority and direct access to vulnerable affected communities; ensures a just transition to a sustainable economy centered on workers, communities and creation; and makes financing for climate solutions, including debt relief, timely and transparent while at the same time upholding human dignity. Together, these actions can work towards integral ecology and ‘give priority to the poor and marginalized in the process.’

“We offer our prayers of support and solidarity and pledge to work collaboratively to safeguard the future of our common home.” 

Archbishop Borys Gudziak is chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, and Bishop A. Elias Zaidan is chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on International Justice and Peace. As president and CEO of CRS, Mr. Callahan leads the international humanitarian agency of the Catholic Church in the United States.

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