VATICAN CITY — In a bold appeal to Catholic educators worldwide, Pope Leo has outlined three urgent priorities for the future of Catholic education: nurturing the interior life, cultivating a humane digital culture, and forming builders of peace.
“The first regards the interior life,” Pope Leo said, stressing that young people today “seek depth” and “need spaces of silence, discernment and dialogue with their consciences and with God.”
Turning to the digital age, the Pope warned that technology and artificial intelligence must serve humanity, not dominate it. “We must educate in the wise use of technology and AI,” he wrote, “placing the person before the algorithm.” True education, he said, must harmonise “technical, emotional, social, spiritual and ecological forms of intelligence.”
His third priority was a plea for peace education: “Let us educate in nonviolent language, reconciliation and bridge-building rather than wall-building,” he said, invoking the Beatitude, “Blessed are the peacemakers” (Mt 5:9), as both “the method and the content of learning.”
While acknowledging that Catholic schools cannot ignore technology, the Pope cautioned against its uncritical use. “No algorithm can replace what makes education truly human: poetry, irony, love, art, imagination, the joy of discovery,” he said, adding that even mistakes can become “opportunities for growth.”
Recalling the legacy of the “desert fathers,” medieval monastics, and the saints who opened schools for the poor and marginalised, Pope Leo urged educators to see learning as an act of dignity and inclusion. “Wherever access to education remains a privilege,” he warned, “the Church must push open doors and invent new pathways, because to lose the poor is to lose the very meaning of the school.”
In his letter, Pope Leo’s vision was clear: Catholic education must form not only minds, but hearts — creating disciples capable of wisdom, compassion, and peace in an age of algorithms.
