The Register portal reports on the underrepresentation of women in artificial intelligence, framing it through the lens of John Paul II’s “feminine genius” and Leo XIV’s encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, arguing that women’s unique pattern-recognition and relational capacities must shape AI development to preserve human dignity. This seemingly benign appeal to feminine participation in technology is, upon rigorous examination, a sophisticated exercise in modernist syncretism — baptizing the most dehumanizing technological revolution in history with the language of Catholic personalism while systematically evading the Church’s immutable teaching on the subordination of all technological progress to the supernatural end of man and the absolute sovereignty of Christ the King over every domain of human activity, including and especially the digital realm.
The “Feminine Genius”: From John Paul II’s Modernist Innovation to Leo XIV’s Technological Utopianism
The article’s entire scaffolding rests upon the concept of “feminine genius,” a term coined by John Paul II in his 1995 “Letter to Women” — a document issued by an antipope whose entire pontificate was characterized by systematic departures from Catholic doctrine, from Assisi interreligious gatherings to the kissing of the Quran. That the article treats this concept as authoritative magisterium worthy of guiding AI policy reveals the depth of the conciliar sect’s capture by modernist categories. The true Catholic position on women’s role is not found in John Paul II’s personalist innovations but in the perennial teaching of the Church: women are called to sanctity through the state of life to which God calls them — whether in the family, the convent, or the single life — always under the hierarchy of Holy Mother Church and never as autonomous agents reshaping technological civilization according to their own “genius.”
Fernanda Psihas is quoted stating that “there’s this perception in some fields that competency is a very masculine trait. And then you have to lose your feminine traits to be competent.” This framing presupposes the entire feminist anthropology that the pre-conciliar Church consistently rejected. The Church has never taught that competency is gendered; rather, it has taught that the proper sphere of women’s influence is the domestic and religious orders, not the boardrooms of technological corporations. Pius XI’s encyclical Casti Connubii (1930) is unequivocal: the father is the head of the family, and the mother is the heart — but neither is called to reshape the technological infrastructure of civilization. The very premise that women must enter AI development to “realign what it is that we’re prioritizing” is a secular, progressive agenda dressed in theological vestments.
Magnifica Humanitas: An Antipope’s Encyclical as Doctrinal Authority
The article treats Leo XIV’s encyclical Magnifica Humanitas as though it carries the weight of Catholic magisterium. This is a fundamental category error that no Catholic faithful to tradition can accept. Leo XIV (Robert Prevost) is an antipope — a usurper of the Chair of Peter who has never received true jurisdiction over the Church. His encyclicals, addresses, and documents possess no more doctrinal authority than the pronouncements of any other private individual. To cite his encyclical as though it provides authoritative guidance on AI is to implicitly recognize his legitimacy, which is itself an act of schism against the true Church.
Moreover, the content of the encyclical as described in the article reveals the same modernist pattern that has characterized every post-conciliar document: a preoccupation with “human dignity” and “authentic relationships” that systematically omits any reference to the supernatural end of man, the necessity of sanctifying grace, the reality of sin, the obligation of receiving the sacraments, or the absolute requirement that all human activity — including technological development — be ordered toward the salvation of souls and the glory of God. When the article states that the encyclical warns against “technologies that risk replacing human workers, manipulating emotions through chatbots, or degrading the moral fabric of modern warfare,” it presents a purely naturalistic framework — concerned with human welfare in this life alone — that would be entirely at home in a secular humanist manifesto.
The Omission of What Matters Most: Sin, Grace, and the Supernatural Order
The most damning feature of this article is not what it says but what it systematically refuses to say. Nowhere in this extended discussion of AI and women’s role in shaping it does one find any mention of: the state of grace, the necessity of the sacraments, the reality of demonic influence, the danger of idolatry, the obligation of rendering to God what is God’s, or the absolute primacy of the supernatural over the natural order. This silence is not accidental — it is the defining characteristic of the entire conciliar project, which has reduced the Church from a supernatural society instituted by Christ for the salvation of souls to a humanitarian NGO concerned with “human dignity” and “authentic relationships.”
Pius XI taught in Quas Primas that Christ’s reign “encompasses also all non-Christians, so that most truly the entire human race is subject to the authority of Jesus Christ” and that “the state is happy not by one means, and man by another; for the state is nothing else than a harmonious association of men.” The article’s entire framework — concerned with gender representation in tech companies and the “feminine genius” shaping algorithms — operates at a level so far removed from this teaching that it might as well be discussing a different religion. The true Catholic question about AI is not “how do we make it more relational” but “does this technology serve or impede the salvation of souls, and does its development acknowledge or deny the sovereignty of Christ the King?”
Pattern Recognition and the Idolatry of Data
Stacy Trasancos argues that “women naturally recognize patterns” and that this capacity is “at the heart of AI itself, as AI is fundamentally a pattern-recognition technology.” She encourages women to “get your hands dirty” and “start using AI and helping shape the algorithms that will influence future generations.” This is presented as a cultural responsibility, even a moral imperative. But from the perspective of integral Catholic faith, this enthusiasm for shaping AI algorithms is deeply problematic.
AI systems are trained on aggregates of human data — which is to say, they are trained on the accumulated output of a fallen, sinful humanity. They reflect not truth but statistical regularities in human behavior, opinion, and expression. To “shape” these algorithms is not to infuse them with wisdom or virtue but to participate in the construction of systems that will inevitably encode and amplify the errors, biases, and sins of the culture that produced the training data. The Church has always taught that grace builds on nature but cannot be reduced to natural processes. No amount of “pattern recognition” — feminine or otherwise — can substitute for the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity, which are infused by God and directed toward a supernatural end that no algorithm can comprehend.
Furthermore, Trasancos’ practice of journaling about her family through an AI system — allowing the technology to “return patterns in human development” — raises serious questions about the commodification of familial relationships and the delegation of discernment to machines. The Church has always taught that the family is a domestic church, governed by the father under the authority of the Church, and that the formation of children is a sacred duty entrusted by God to parents — not to algorithms. To outsource the discernment of family dynamics to an AI system is to participate in the very substitution of programmed responsiveness for genuine human (and supernatural) encounter that the article itself claims to warn against.
The “Courage of Femininity” in the Service of Technological Idolatry
Kerri Christopher’s observation that men are “frequently more enthusiastic and excited by the possibilities” of AI while women are “instinctively cautious or hesitant” is perhaps the most revealing passage in the article. She speculates that this caution “may itself be a form of the feminine genius, a particular sensitivity to what may be lost when human relationships and human presence begin to disappear behind technology.” This is a remarkable admission: the very women the article seeks to recruit into AI development are instinctively suspicious of it.
The article’s response to this instinctive caution is not to heed it but to override it — to argue that women must overcome their hesitation and enter the field anyway, bringing their “feminine genius” to bear on the technology they instinctively distrust. This is not the language of vocation; it is the language of recruitment. The true Catholic response to instinctive caution about a powerful and poorly understood technology would be to examine that caution in light of faith, to ask whether it reflects a genuine prudential judgment about the dangers of the technology, and to submit that judgment to the teaching of the Church. Instead, the article treats women’s caution as an obstacle to be overcome — a form of timidity that must be conquered in the service of “reshaping” AI.
Psihas frames this as “an act of courage that we need women in these fields to be willing to do.” But courage in the Catholic sense is not the willingness to enter secular fields and baptize them with theological language. Courage is the willingness to profess the faith in the face of persecution, to reject the spirit of the world, and to suffer rather than compromise with error. The “courage” demanded by this article is precisely the opposite: the courage to embrace the world’s projects and call them holy.
The Syllabus of Errors and the Spirit of the Age
The entire article is a living illustration of the errors condemned by Pius IX in the Syllabus of Errors (1864). Error 80 — “The Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization” — is the animating spirit of this entire discussion. The article does not ask whether AI development is compatible with the faith; it assumes that it is, and asks only how the faith can be made useful to AI development. This is the inversion of the proper order: the faith does not serve progress; progress must serve the faith, or it must be rejected.
Error 77 — “In the present day it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State, to the exclusion of all other forms of worship” — finds its technological parallel in the article’s assumption that the Church’s role is not to judge and govern technological development but to participate in it, to “contribute” to the conversation, to bring the “feminine genius” to the table where decisions are being made by secular corporations and governments. The Church is not a participant in the world’s projects; she is the judge of all human activity, and her judgment is not a “contribution” to the conversation but the authoritative pronouncement of Christ’s Vicar — when there is a true Pope to pronounce it.
The Abomination of Desolation and the Digital Tower of Babel
The article’s vision of women shaping AI algorithms to “influence future generations” should be recognized for what it is: a digital Tower of Babel, a human project of comprehensive knowledge and control that attributes to itself the power to shape the future of the human race. The Catholic Church has always taught that such projects — whether political, technological, or intellectual — are inherently disordered when they proceed without reference to God and His law. The construction of AI systems that mediate human relationships, shape human perception, and influence human development is not a neutral technical project; it is a spiritual endeavor with profound implications for the salvation or damnation of souls.
The conciliar sect’s enthusiasm for participating in this project — for “getting hands dirty” with AI, for “shaping algorithms,” for bringing the “feminine genius” to Silicon Valley — is a symptom of its complete apostasy from the supernatural mission of the Church. A true Catholic response to the AI revolution would begin not with questions of gender representation but with the fundamental question posed by Christ: “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul?” (Mark 8:36). No amount of “feminine genius” can answer that question, and no algorithm can substitute for the grace of God communicated through the true sacraments of the true Church.
Conclusion: The True Role of Women in the Face of Technological Apostasy
The article’s call for women to enter AI development and shape it according to the “feminine genius” is not a call to holiness; it is a call to complicity in the construction of a technological order that, by its very nature, tends to replace genuine human encounter with programmed responsiveness, to substitute data for wisdom, and to elevate human autonomy above divine sovereignty. The true Catholic woman — formed by the unchanging teaching of the Church, nourished by the true Mass and the true sacraments, and obedient to the authority of the true Church — has no business “shaping algorithms” for secular corporations. Her vocation is to sanctify herself and her family, to raise her children in the faith, to support the true Church in her prayers and sacrifices, and to resist the spirit of the age in all its forms — including and especially the seductive invitation to baptize the world’s projects with theological language.
The “feminine genius” that the article invokes is not the genius of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who said “Be it done unto me according to thy word” and submitted herself entirely to the will of God. It is the genius of Eve, who reached for the fruit of the tree of knowledge in the belief that she would become like God. The AI revolution is the fruit of that same tree, and the conciliar sect’s invitation to women to “shape” it is the serpent’s whisper, updated for the digital age: “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:4-5).
Source:
Women Are Being Left Out of the AI Conversation: Should We Care? (ncregister.com)
Date: 04.06.2026