I recently had the opportunity to represent the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities in Canada at an event hosted by our U.S. counterpart. Both organizations, representing close to 250 Catholic post-secondary institutions, have the enviable opportunity of championing the Catholic intellectual tradition for tens of thousands of students in a mission that dates back over a thousand years to the formation, by the Catholic Church, of the very first universities. 

The Rome Seminar provides critical opportunities for university leaders to meet with key dicasteries of the Vatican, and with other Rome-based Catholic organizations such as The Lay Centre, Vatican Radio, and the Borgo Laudato Sí in the town of Castel Gandolfo. One extraordinary highlight is the opportunity to meet the Holy Father. For us this occurred on June 3, just after the release of Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical Magnifica Humanitas: on safeguarding the human person in the age of artificial intelligence.’

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While a papal audience is always extraordinary, it assumes a particular poignancy when the subject is directly related to our core mission. Such was the case with our visit. Speaking to about 30 people, Pope Leo urged us to instill a passion for justice, learning and discovery in our students: to champion a curiosity and hunger for learning grounded in the message of Christ. “Unless Catholic education instills in students a passion for the truth — and not only intellectual truth, but the truth that is Christ himself — we can hardly expect people to be willing to put forth the effort required to recognize truth and adapt one’s life accordingly.’

Recognizing that “the decisive importance of Catholic education in today’s world” is fundamental, he urged us as post-secondary leaders to be “true disciples of Christ” so that “those entrusted to you can truly encounter the Lord and discover in the Catholic faith the unifying vision that truth alone can provide…the sound doctrine entrusted to the Church … will serve as a true and lasting foundation not only for [our students’] lives, but the future of the nation.” 

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Not surprisingly, he dedicated part of his talk to Magnifica Humanitas, touching on the growing sense of disconnect students feel as they are directed to increasingly narrow fields that leave them unable “to connect information with deeper knowledge or maintain a sense of purpose.” Governments in Canada and the U.S. increasingly compel our institutions to disregard the liberal arts for what is erroneously called “productive” work-related study. The Pope urged us to broaden our students’ vision, to impart “a global vision of reality that is capable of uniting not only the various fields of knowledge, but also the multiple aspects of life and the inner longings of the human heart.”

This, he noted, is especially important given the constricting nature of AI, which appears to open us to knowledge, connection, and discovery but often has the opposite effect of sending students down narrow pathways of self-perpetuating biases and into lonely, disconnected spaces. Students, he said, “struggle to find direction, partly due to an inability to connect information with deeper knowledge or maintain a sense of purpose.” 

It is thus our role as Catholic institutions “to transmit the living Gospel (so) those entrusted to (us) can truly encounter the Lord and discover in the Catholic faith the unifying vision that truth alone can provide.”

Pope Leo’s message is not a Luddite view. Rather, he recognizes that we need to protect the dignity of the human persons who use technology so that AI serves, rather than supplants, the human spirit. 

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The delegates presented a gift to the Holy Father on behalf of all the participating institutions including Corpus Christi and St. Mark’s College in Vancouver, Newman Theological College in Edmonton, and St. Paul University in Ottawa. It was a promise that our institutions would dedicate over 5000 service hours during the 2026-27 academic year, placing the poor at the centre of students’ experience. This undertaking builds on the commitment to service learning that is woven into the fabric of most of our Catholic institutions. Pope Leo was visibly moved when Donna Carroll, President of ACCU, presented the gift. 

He closed the meeting by imparting an Apostolic Blessing on all gathered there but reminded us he extended this ‘to the people, the communities, and the institutions’ we represent. I think our nations are included in that heartfelt invocation.