The National Catholic Register reports that DePaul University hosted a conference on April 30–May 1, 2026, titled “Pope Leo XIV: From the Americas, For the World,” where Jesuit Father Philip Larrey discussed the usurper antipope’s approach to artificial intelligence. Larrey praised Leo XIV’s “fresh” and “humane” take on AI, emphasizing that “machines do not have a soul” and that only God can create one. The conference, organized by DePaul’s Center for World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology, framed AI as a pressing ethical concern for the conciliar sect, with Larrey warning that AI threatens to “alter radically some of the fundamental pillars of human civilization.” This entire discourse, however, reveals the profound spiritual bankruptcy of post-conciliarism: while the neo-church obsesses over the ethics of digital machines, it has abandoned the immutable Catholic doctrine of the soul, the supernatural order, and the social reign of Christ the King—replacing them with a naturalistic humanism dressed in theological vestments.
The Illusion of Catholic AI Ethics: A Modernist Distraction
The conference’s focus on artificial intelligence as a central concern of the conciliar sect is not accidental. It is a direct consequence of the modernist revolution that has gutted the Church of her supernatural mission. When Father Larrey states that Pope Leo XIV “wants to do for the Church and the world … in what he calls the digital revolution” what Leo XIII did for the industrial revolution, he inadvertently exposes the fundamental error: the conciliar sect no longer understands the Church’s mission as the salvation of souls and the establishment of Christ’s social kingdom. Instead, it reduces the Church’s role to that of a moral consultant to the world, offering “ethical” guidance on technological developments while remaining silent on the far greater crisis of apostasy, heresy, and the loss of faith within its own structures.
Pius XI, in Quas Primas (1925), declared with unmistakable clarity that “the hope of lasting peace will not yet shine upon nations as long as individuals and states renounce and do not wish to recognize the reign of our Savior.” The entire thrust of the DePaul conference—and indeed of Leo XIV’s pontificate—is the precise opposite: it seeks to engage with the world on the world’s terms, addressing technological anxieties while ignoring the foundational truth that all human problems, including those posed by artificial intelligence, stem from the rejection of Christ the King. Pius XI warned that “when God and Jesus Christ were removed from laws and states and when authority was derived not from God but from men, the foundations of that authority were destroyed.” The neo-church’s obsession with AI ethics is itself a symptom of this deracination—a Church that has lost its divine mandate now scrambles to remain “relevant” by commenting on Silicon Valley’s latest toys.
The Doctrine of the Soul: Correct in Isolation, Corrupted in Context
Father Larrey’s assertion that “machines do not have a soul” and that “only God can be responsible for the creation of the soul” is, in the abstract, Catholic teaching. The Church has always held, following Aristotle as interpreted by St. Thomas Aquinas, that the rational soul is directly created by God and infused into the body at the moment of conception. As Larrey correctly notes, “Aristotle said that all living beings have souls, but only the human being has an immortal soul.” This is sound Thomistic doctrine.
However, the context in which this truth is deployed reveals the modernist corruption. Larrey’s discussion of the soul is framed entirely within a naturalistic, anthropocentric concern about AI replacing human interactions. He worries that students “turn to AI rather than human connection” and that AI “encroaches upon the deepest level of communication, that of human relation.” What is entirely absent is any mention of the supernatural life of grace, the state of the soul before God, the reality of sin, the necessity of the sacraments, or the eternal destiny of the soul. The soul, in this discourse, is reduced to a philosophical differentiator between humans and machines—a marker of “consciousness” and “self-awareness”—rather than the immortal creature made in the image and likeness of God, destined for eternal beatitude or eternal damnation.
This is the hallmark of modernism: the retention of Catholic terminology emptied of its supernatural content. As St. Pius X condemned in Lamentabili sane exitu (1907), proposition 20: “Revelation was merely man’s self-awareness of his relationship to God.” The DePaul conference’s treatment of the soul follows this exact pattern—it speaks of the soul not in relation to God, grace, and eternal life, but in relation to machines, consciousness, and human interaction. The soul becomes a topic for a philosophy seminar, not the very reason for the Church’s existence.
Consciousness Without Grace: The Modernist Anthropological Reduction
Larrey’s discussion of consciousness is particularly revealing. He states: “Human beings are self-aware, which means that we know that we know. Other living animals are conscious, but they’re not self-conscious, which means they don’t know that they know.” He then warns that as AI becomes more sophisticated, “we will probably attribute consciousness to that machine.”
This entire framework is built on a purely naturalistic anthropology. There is no mention of the intellect and will as the faculties of the rational soul, no discussion of the light of faith, no reference to the supernatural gift of sanctifying grace that elevates the soul to a participation in the divine nature. The Catechism of the Council of Trent teaches that man is distinguished from beasts not merely by self-awareness but by his capacity to know and love God, a capacity that is wounded by original sin and restored only through baptism and the sacraments. The Council of Vienne (1311–1312) defined that the soul is “really, of itself, and essentially the form of the body” (Quicunque vult), a truth that places the soul at the very center of Catholic anthropology—not as a differentiator from machines, but as the principle of the body’s life and the subject of God’s grace.
By reducing the discussion of consciousness to a comparison with AI, Larrey implicitly adopts the modernist framework condemned by St. Pius X in Pascendi Dominici gregis (1907), where “the religious sense” is treated as a natural phenomenon rather than a supernatural gift. The conciliar sect’s entire approach to AI is an exercise in what Pius IX condemned in the Syllabus of Errors as moderate rationalism: treating theological questions “in the same manner as philosophical sciences” (proposition 8) and holding that “philosophy is to be treated without taking any account of supernatural revelation” (proposition 14).
The Denial of Death and the Promise of Digital Immortality
Perhaps the most theologically revealing moment in the conference is Larrey’s discussion of immortality. He states: “According to Catholic tradition, the human being is not immortal. The soul is immortal. The human being dies, and the soul continues to live. And at the end of time, there will be the resurrection of the body.” He then warns that those seeking digital immortality through technology are undermining the meaning of death: “Death is part of life. Death is a meaningful part of it. And if you take that away… I think we’re gonna lose a lot of meaning and purpose.”
While this is doctrinally correct in its bare assertion, the framing is deeply problematic. Larrey presents the Catholic teaching on the immortality of the soul and the resurrection of the body as a counterpoint to transhumanist aspirations, but he does so without any mention of the Four Last Things—death, judgment, heaven, and hell. The “meaning” of death, in Catholic doctrine, is not an abstract philosophical concept but a concrete reality: it is the moment when the soul is separated from the body and faces the Particular Judgment, after which it enters heaven, purgatory, or hell. The resurrection of the body at the end of time is not a vague hope but a defined dogma of the faith, proclaimed at the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) and reaffirmed at the Council of Trent.
By stripping the doctrine of death and immortality of its eschatological and soteriological content, Larrey reduces it to a humanistic platitude. This is precisely the error condemned by Pius IX in the Syllabus of Errors, proposition 58: “No other forces are to be recognized except those which reside in matter, and all the rectitude and excellence of morality ought to be placed in the accumulation and increase of riches by every possible means, and the gratification of pleasure.” The conciliar sect’s engagement with transhumanism is not a defense of Catholic eschatology but a negotiation with secularism—offering “Catholic perspectives” on technological questions while abandoning the supernatural framework that gives those perspectives their meaning.
The Name “Leo”: A False Continuity
Larrey’s explanation for why the usurper took the name “Leo” is telling: “Pope Leo XIV took his name because of Pope Leo XIII, who in the 19th century did for the Church in the industrial revolution what Pope Leo XIV wants to do for the Church and the world in what he calls the digital revolution.” This comparison is not merely inapt—it is a deliberate falsification of history designed to lend legitimacy to the conciliar revolution.
Leo XIII, in his encyclical Immortale Dei (1885), taught with absolute clarity that “the Almighty, therefore, has given the charge of the human race to two powers, the ecclesiastical and the civil, the one being set over divine, and the other over human, each the highest in its own kind, and each fixed within certain limits, defined by its own nature and special object.” He further declared that “the State must not only abstain from the Church, but must also… render obedience to her in things that appertain to the spiritual order.” This is the Leo XIII that the conciliar sect claims as its inspiration—while systematically repudiating every substantive teaching he held.
The “hermeneutic of continuity” is the great lie of post-conciliarism. As the Syllabus of Errors condemns in proposition 13: “The method and principles by which the old scholastic doctors cultivated theology are no longer suitable to the demands of our times and to the progress of the sciences.” This is precisely the principle that animates the DePaul conference: the belief that the Church must adapt her message to the “digital revolution” just as (they claim) Leo XIII adapted it to the industrial revolution. But Leo XIII did not adapt the Church’s doctrine—he applied immutable principles to new circumstances. The conciliar sect, by contrast, has abandoned the principles themselves.
The Silence That Condemns: What the Conference Did Not Say
The most damning critique of the DePaul conference is not what it said, but what it did not say. In an entire conference dedicated to the usurper antipope’s first year of papacy, with panels on his “connections across the globe,” “the future of the Church under his leadership,” and “his missionary work in Peru,” there was:
No mention of the social reign of Christ the King—the very doctrine that Pius XI declared essential to the peace and order of human society.
No mention of the necessity of the sacraments for salvation—no call to confession, no exhortation to receive the Most Holy Eucharist worthily, no warning against sacrilegious communion in the conciliar sect’s invalid “masses.”
No mention of the state of grace—the single most important reality in every human life, without which all ethical discourse is meaningless.
No mention of the reality of sin—original sin, mortal sin, the necessity of contrition and satisfaction.
No mention of the Four Last Things—death, judgment, heaven, and hell.
No mention of the crisis of faith within the conciliar sect—the apostasy, the heresies, the sacrileges, the destruction of the priesthood and the Mass.
No mention of the only true solution to the world’s problems: the return of all nations and all men to the social and individual reign of Christ the King, as prescribed by Pius XI in Quas Primas.
This silence is not accidental. It is the defining characteristic of the conciliar sect. As St. Pius X warned in Lamentabili sane exitu, proposition 65: “Contemporary Catholicism cannot be reconciled with true knowledge without transforming it into a certain dogmaless Christianity, that is, into a broad and liberal Protestantism.” The DePaul conference is a perfect illustration of this prophecy: a “Catholic” gathering that discusses everything except the faith, that speaks of the soul but not of grace, that worries about AI but not about the abomination of desolation sitting in the temple of God.
The Jesuit Connection: From the Society of Jesus to the Society of Compromise
It is fitting that the keynote speaker on AI and human dignity was a Jesuit. The Society of Jesus, founded by St. Ignatius of Loyola to defend the faith and the Holy See, has become since the conciar revolution the primary engine of modernism within the Church. Father Larrey’s credentials—associate professor at Boston College, past dean at the Pontifical Lateran University, collaborator with the United Nations—are the credentials of a functionary of the conciliar establishment, not a defender of the faith.
The Jesuits of St. Ignatius’s era produced saints and martyrs: St. Francis Xavier, St. Peter Canisius, St. Edmund Campion. The Jesuits of the conciliar era produce conferences on AI ethics at DePaul University. The contrast is not merely striking—it is damning. As Pius IX declared in the Syllabus of Errors, proposition 80: “The Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization.” This is the Jesuit vocation in the 21st century: not to convert the world to Christ, but to reconcile Christ to the world.
Conclusion: The Soulless Church Addresses Soulless Machines
The DePaul University conference on Pope Leo XIV and artificial intelligence is a microcosm of everything that is wrong with the conciliar sect. It takes a legitimate Catholic truth—that only God can create a rational soul—and deploys it in a context entirely devoid of supernatural faith. It speaks of “human dignity” without reference to the image of God in the soul, of “ethics” without reference to the natural law and the divine law, of “the future of the Church” without reference to the Church’s divine constitution and mission.
Pius XI, in Quas Primas, declared: “If men were ever to recognize Christ’s royal authority over themselves, both privately and publicly, then unheard-of blessings would flow upon the whole society, such as due freedom, order, and tranquility, and concord and peace.” The conciliar sect, by contrast, offers “ethical guidelines” for AI while Christ is banished from the public square, from the schools, from the laws, and from the very institutions that claim his name.
The machines, as Father Larrey correctly notes, do not have souls. But the greater danger is not soulless machines—it is a soulless Church, a Church that has lost the faith and now wanders in the desert of secular ethics, offering “Catholic perspectives” on a world that is hurtling toward damnation. The faithful must reject this counterfeit and return to the immutable Tradition: the fullness of the Catholic faith, the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the sacraments that confer grace, and the social reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ over all nations, all peoples, and all aspects of human life—including, and especially, the digital realm. Ad maiorem Dei gloriam—but only if the God in whose glory we act is the true God, known through the true faith, and served through the true Church.
Source:
DePaul University Conference On Pope Leo Draws Conversation About AI, Human Dignity (ncregister.com)
Date: 04.05.2026