Pope Leo asked an atheist, Christopher Olah, to join the panel introducing the Encyclical Magnifica Humanitas at the Vatican on 25^th May. Christopher is a founder member of Anthropic, the biggest AI tech company in the world. It is famous for its insistence that we need to explore the ethical use of this promising but dangerous technology.

Christopher Olah stressed in his remarks that experts in technology are not experts in ethics, and they urgently need help in establishing guidelines.

The pope was making the point that we have to listen to and dialogue with all people of good will to construct a future which is beneficial to all humanity.

The supreme contribution of the Church is to add listening to the Holy Spirit to the much-needed world-wide dialogue and collaboration. People of good will are listening in their own way to the Spirit, but their hearing is impaired by insufficient knowledge of God. We have to provide the fruits of 2000 years of the Church listening to the Spirit.

In the Encyclical Pope Leo calls for a deepening of this synodal listening in our day. He stresses that we in the Church will not be able to lead the people of today on the path of synodal cooperation unless we seriously practice synodal listening to eachother and the Holy Spirit within the Church itself.



There is a lot of work needed here, because many of us do not really understand the practical ways of synodality. Each one of us is called in our own way do what we can to further good practice here. This is no time to shrink by the wayside while Christ and his purposes move forward.