I’ll start with a few stories to illustrate my point. Recently, I read a piece about how interviewees are using generative AI to give answers to potential employers during Zoom interviews. One CEO said that the young man he was interviewing stuttered and forgot simple words. The man attributed it to regularly using AI to finish his sentences.
As someone born in the 80’s, I have not used AI a lot. I hardly know how to change the background on my iPhone. The thought of letting a computer finish my sentences for a job interview sounds crazy to me.
Next I listened to Fr. Boniface Hicks share on Lila Rose’s podcast that he thinks our lack of authentic relationships has led to the explosion of coaches, mentors, and therapists. “Broadly speaking, society is falling apart at the seams. In the midst of that, all these specialized relationships are forming.” He acknowledged the good these “relationship specialists” offer and suggested they are current solutions to our deep-seated desire for friendship, family, and to be known and loved.
Finally, I just read this morning at The Pillar the story of the largest Catholic speed dating event I’d ever heard of. What the article highlighted for me is the dearth of healthy, in-person interactions for college students today. Young men are afraid to talk to girls, and no one is used to talking face-to-face with the opposite sex. I only have sympathy for them considering culture they grew up in and hope for a solution since my oldest are approaching their teenage years.
More Problems with AI
Also from The Pillar, I learned that on New Year’s Eve in Birmingham, England, thousands awaited a fireworks show that was never scheduled to take place. They showed up because AI told them to, using its own algorithms to create online ads for an event that was not going to happen.
A fun game I played for a while was spotting the problems with AI-generated kitchen and bathroom remodels on Facebook. A toilet with 3 handles; an appliance in a weird corner, a shelf that could never be hung like that. Or you look at the fingers in pictures because AI never gets that right. People are also becoming adept at spotting AI-generated text, with hundreds of users commenting on one post describing how to decorate the landing at the bottom of the stairs with “festive ornaments” as definitely AI.
As people become more weary and suspect of what they see on the screen, where can we turn for truth? For something real?
A Physical, Tangible Solution
Later in the podcast with Fr. Boniface, he comments, “Spiritual direction is what ChatGPT can not be: It’s a relationship.” That got me thinking about how the Church is positioned to respond to today’s digital world. We have all the tools to address this need for physical, relational belonging but are we ready to use them?
We are seeing young people coming into the Church longing for ancient traditions. In this rapidly changing technological world, there is comfort in knowing the Church’s long-standing teachings, history, and rituals are here to stay.
All of the Church’s sacraments require you to be physically present, using tangible materials and specific words and formulas as the matter that imparts grace. As we learned during COVID, you cannot have the Sacrament of Reconciliation over the phone. A televised Mass does not replace being present in the Church and receiving the Body and Blood of Christ in your mouth. Baptisms and Anointing of the Sick need oil placed on your head and hands.
We need to be physically near each other to receive Sacramental grace. The rest of the community-building opportunities flow from our coming together for the Sacraments. Every Church, I believe, should have donuts after Mass, bible studies, men’s and women’s groups, youth and young adults groups. We should be actively inviting people to be in relationship with us in these physical, tangible communities. Because if we don’t, other groups will. The longing is urgent.
Last year we went to a first birthday party for the son of a guy who works with my husband. I saw all these young couples with their babies and asked how they all knew each other. Almost every single person knew one another from Crossfit. At least here in Colorado, gyms and outdoor bike groups and running clubs are dominating the social scene. If you want to do something in person, you work out together.
Or you go to a bar. But that often doesn’t end well.
The Church has the ancient, physical means of the Sacraments and community right at its fingertips. It should be the antidote to fake news. Every parish should be the “Crossfit” capital of their neighborhood, the watering hole where men and women, children and adults can gather in person to be in relationship.
I’ll close with another excerpt from the podcast with Fr. Boniface:
“There’s a hunger for relationships. . . we have a deep need to be seen, to be understood. . . The brain develops in relationship.
JP II said that Man is in the image and likeness of God, but he is more in the image and likeness of God when he is in a communion of persons. Heaven is only a communion of persons. . . . It’s a little taste of heaven when we can be seen and received in these connections.”