We publish here the full text of Paolo Ruffini's speech at the Catholic Media Conference in Altanta.
21 June 2024
Let me tell you, first of all, how happy I am to be here, as a colleague among colleagues; and to have been able to participate in this event with you, this time for some days and not just for some hours as was the case last year.
For those of you who may not know me yet: I am one of you, I am a journalist.
I have worked for secular media for most of my professional career – first for two newspapers, then for our Italian national public radio, and then for public and commercial television. Only 10 years ago I was called to direct the Catholic television owned by the Italian conference of bishops. And for the last 6 years I have been working for the Holy See.
During my first years here I have learned how surprisingly fruitful our testimony in the secular environment can be (even if we know it is imperfect … as we are all human beings).
We are called to be salt and leaven wherever we work, and to be those things in a humble way.
In these last 10 years I’ve learned how important it is to have our own system of communication which should be kept up to date, which should be creative and beautiful from an aesthetic point of view. It should be an attractive alternative, being grounded in a different way of seeking and sharing the true, the good, and what is right.
It has been beautiful to connect to you all in person here in Atlanta.
Connecting to one another is fundamental to build our communion as a Church.
Our Catholicity lies precisely in this communion of diversity under the guidance of Peter and his successors.
To communicate the beauty of the Church means to bear witness to this unity, that connects us to all those with whom we are communicating.
Every day we should examine ourselves on how to be faithful to this mandate.
At the same time, we know one thing:
In order to bear witness, our own efforts, abilities and means are not enough.
It is for this reason, that Jesus asked the disciples to wait for the coming of the Spirit before they began to speak.
To rely only on ourselves is a temptation and we need to recognize it as such/ and it needs to be recognized as such.
In order to bear testimony to the Paschal mystery, we need the Holy Spirit.
The Church is not founded on the arrogance of Babel (which produces disorder and scatters people – cf. Gen 11:9), but on the humility of Peter, for whom Jesus prayed to God the Father with these words:
“Simon, Simon, behold Satan has demanded to sift all of you like wheat,
but I have prayed that your own faith may not fail”, as we read in the Gospel according to Luke (22:32).
As St. John Paul II noted, these words assure Simon and his successors that Jesus will pray for them in a particular way. The mission which is entrusted to Peter by Jesus concerns the Church throughout the centuries and the succession of human generations.
And in these words the mission entrusted to him, which is that of confirming his brothers and sisters in the faith, is announced.
It is only through the gift of love, bestowed by the Holy Spirit, it is only by following Peter that the Church remains steadfast and that building communion in diversity is possible.
This is the service that is entrusted to us, a service that we must fulfill with humility; witnessing in the experience of communion what makes us "of one heart and soul".[1]
We are called to bear witness to this in midst of a crisis of many traditional means of communications, in the midst of a change of epoch…
We are living in an environment that is increasingly polarized and toxic and which not only threatens the roots of democracy, but also affects our being members of one ecclesial body.
Currently, the fundamental concern about communication is not about technology, but about what lays at its core; and our questions should therefore be:
How can we make our communication an instrument not only of connection but of communion? How can communion give sense to communication and help us in narrating the truth?
How can we find a dynamism of hope, a dynamism of good, the dynamism of the redemption in anything we narrate?
We should look at these questions through the lens of the Gospel, so let me step back and begin with a story from the Gospel. And as in a few weeks you will be hosting a Eucharistic congress I have chosen one of the stories that best connects to this event.
It is a story that we all know, a story about two disciples of Jesus who are on the road to Emmaus.
A story that we have heard so many times that we hardly pay any attention to it anymore.
It is my belief, however, that it can help us in our reflection.
The starting point of the story is the resurrection of Jesus – it says that “that very day two of them were going to a village … called Emmaus.” That same day is the day when Jesus will be glorified. However, these disciples still don’t know about this!
They are conversing as they walk: they need to process all the things that have happened.
They are leaving the place where their Teacher failed his mission and was killed as the worst of criminals, and they are filled with disappointment and fear.
As they keep on discussing things, Jesus himself draws near and walks along with them; but they are kept from recognizing him.
When asked “What are you discussing as you walk along?”, they react just the way we would react if we ever met someone who didn’t know about the biggest and most recent piece of news (as if he was, for example, not informed about an earthquake, a terrorist attack or something similar).
We could say that Jesus personifies the phenomenon of news avoidance (it seems that the United States has one of the highest-news avoidance rates in the world, with more than 40% of Americans saying they actively avoid the news…)
Only a stranger could possibly ask such a question, so they ask him: “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know of the things that have taken place there in these days?”
And Jesus, who has actually experienced all the “things that have taken place there” firsthand, continues with His questions. He wants them to tell their own version of the story of what happened to Him!
He acts – we could say – as a good journalist, who allows the story to unfold and to clearly delineated. Asking the right questions is at the foundations of good journalism.
As they continue to talk, we learn about their biggest problem: they “crucified him … But we were hoping that he would be the one to redeem Israel”.
We learn that their hope has been broken.
And that their narrative frame is therefore one of delusion and despair.
A frame that distorts reality and obscures the truth.
And only at this point Jesus tells His story, breaking their frame of despair, declaring their narrative as foolish and explaining a completely different point of view by using the Scriptures: “Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and enter into his glory?”
They still don’t recognize who this pilgrim walking with them is, but they are interested in His narrative frame and they are willing to continue to listen to Him: “Stay with us – they say – for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over”.
They like his hopeful perspective.
They also represent the attitude of contemporary media users well.
In the latest Digital News Report which was released a couple of days ago by the Reuters Institute, we can read - and I quote, that – “in exploring user needs around news, our data suggest that publishers may be focusing too much on updating people on top news stories and not spending enough time providing different perspectives on issues or reporting stories that can provide a basis for occasional optimism.
Jesus is actually providing them with a different perspective, a basis for optimism, for hope!
The story continues with Jesus taking bread, giving thanks and breaking it… and it is only at this point that the disciples remember and recognize their traveling companion as Jesus.
The effect Jesus’ storytelling has on them is that their hearts “burn”. “Were not our hearts burning [within us] while he spoke to us on the way and opened the scriptures to us?” they say.
And the second outcome is that this change of perspective also changes the direction of their journey. They return to Jerusalem, to the community where they can bear witness to what had happened in their encounter with the risen Lord.
The crucial moment is when Jesus breaks the bread in front of them.
“…while he was with them at table, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them... With that their eyes were opened” (Luke 24,31-32).
Their eyes are opened. They understand because they are brought back to the first time this has happened, to the institution of the Eucharist.
This story is also our story.
This story is actually repeated every single time bread is broken and we participate in the Eucharist.
Participating in the Eucharistic liturgy is to share our journey with Jesus. It is the place where He nourishes us with Holy Communion, which allows us to be in communion with Him and with each other – and which is also the place where He enables us to change our narratives.
Participating in the Eucharist makes us able to recognize the Lord who walks with us in the midst of the failures and disappointments of our lives.
It makes us able to always come back to our community.
It enables us to rediscover that – thanks to the encounter with the Lord – everything has been redeemed.
It enables us to witness Hope.
Changing existing narratives towards hopeful ones, recognizing the dynamism of the good,
setting hearts ablaze and orienting them toward communion with others.
Bearing witness by using a different type of storytelling, which is generative and creative…
These are ways to spread the good news and to give a Christian interpretation of anything that happens in the world.
In this sense we could also say that the Eucharist truly nourishes the understanding of our vocation as communicators.
The connection between the Eucharist and communication was already beautifully explained in Communion et Progressio n. 11, where we read that
At its most profound level [communication] is the giving of self in love. Christ's communication was, in fact, spirit and life. In the institution of the Holy Eucharist, Christ gave us the most perfect and most intimate form of communion between God and man possible in this life, and, out of this, the deepest possible unity between men.
All of our communication is rooted in this Eucharistic giving of self, which is Christ’s and is the basis of the communion among us and which always orients us toward hope.
This is why our communication is not, and cannot just be about passing information on. Or just a form of marketing and advertising.
Pope Francis often says that “our communication must be a testimony. If you want to communicate just one truth without goodness and beauty, stop, do not do it. If you want to communicate a truth of some kind, but without involving yourselves, without bearing witness to that truth with your own life, with your own flesh, stop, do not do it. All of the things we do always bear the signature of our own testimony.”[2]
To communicate is to accompany one another in understanding. To communicate is to be sharing, to be building bridges with words, images, stories.
Communicating means to build up a community, which is not to be conceived of as a closed group of like-minded believers, but as a welcoming environment for everyone, , as an openhearted ecosystem where everyone perceives himself to be at the service of everyone else.
Communication truly has the power to weave communion into being, to connect people, to make them participate in an experience, to free them from isolation, and to help them to recognize themselves as being part of a larger community.
Many different organizations offer a number of initiatives that provide – together with a concrete story – a possibility for the reader to relate to them and to be involved.
But media newsrooms can also make a big contribution with their special projects that aim at changing stereotypical narratives.
It’s encouraging to find efforts to overcome polarized environments. There is an initiative for instance, which comprises telling stories about communication. It takes place at a table, to which two people are invited to have dinner, and who have two completely different perspectives about something. It’s called “Dining across the divide” and its subtitle is Can breaking bread together help bridge differences?”[3]
As a Church we can certainly provide, a different way to tell stories about migrants, for instance, as a way to end prejudice, hate speech and to foster integration.
We can tell stories and change the narratives about refugees with the refugees: The Church lives with the marginalized, they are part of the Church, therefore the Church can tell stories – not ABOUT the marginalized but WITH them.
Some initiatives even provided a “Positive Storytelling Kit”, a series of successful communication campaigns that share a positive narrative on migration and integration, as sources of inspiration for local authorities who want to develop their own campaigning ideas.
At the Dicastery for Communication we are trying to provide at least some examples of such storytelling through Vatican News and L’Osservatore Romano with projects like “Voices of Migrants” or the “Sisters Project” that share inspiring stories about the hidden work of sisters in 10 different languages. These sisters share their stories from the grassroots; these are stories of people accompanying other people. No one is in a better position to share a story than those people who are personally involved in the story and the suffering of another.
These are just a few examples of how to make our communication a concrete instrument of communion and of hope, by trying to connect people with people.
I was happy to discover how the Digital News report confirms what our profound belief is as Christians. One way in which publishers have been trying to square the circle of news avoidance has been through a ‘user needs’ model, where stories that update people about the latest news are supplemented by commissioning more that educate, inspire, provide perspective, connect, or entertain.
This could be the best possible time for Catholic communicators. People feel “worn out” by the sheer amount of news, and the negative nature of the news themselves makes them feel anxious and powerless. People are waiting for us, Catholic communicators, to provide a different perspective, to connect people and to invite them to participate in a story of hope.
But now, how do we put all of this together with the emerging challenge of Artificial intelligences?
How do we approach this exponential growth of the systems of AI without losing our humanity, but instead in order to grow in maturity as human beings?
As you know, the concern about AI was the main theme of the Pope’s Message for this year’s World Day of Peace and also of his message for World Communication Day. Furthermore, just a week ago he delivered a keynote speech about AI referring to it as an exciting and fearsome tool at the Intergovernmental Forum of the G7 in Italy (which will be remembered as the first time in history a Pope attended the event).
The fact that he was invited shows us how the world is longing for a change of paradigm.
The title of Pope Francis' Message for the last World Communications Day “Artificial intelligence and the wisdom of heart” confronts us with the question: what is true intelligence? What is true wisdom?
His answer is that…
“…wisdom cannot be sought from machines. Although the term “artificial intelligence” has now supplanted the more correct term “machine learning”, which is used in scientific literature, the very use of the word “intelligence” can prove misleading. Without a doubt, machines possess an unlimitedly greater capacity than human beings for storing and correlating data, but only human beings are capable of making sense of that data.
Intelligence that is really “generative” is only the one that comes from the “burning” of the heart (cf. Luke 24). It is from this experience of a personal encounter that the wisest and most constructive decisions can be taken, as in the case of our disciples on the road to Emmaus.
We cannot delegate the creation of such experiences to algorithms, which are based on calculating probabilities, which are, in deed, neither intelligent nor artificial.
The so-called generative artificial intelligence is not really “generative”. It searches through big data to find information and puts all results together, but it does not develop new analyses or concepts. It doesn’t provide the possibility for authentic reflection, “yet it runs the risk of being reduced to a repetition of notions, which will be increasingly evaluated as unobjectionable, simply because of their constant repetition.”[4]
And there is more...
It has been proven, for example, that when the system behind AI does not have enough information to answer a question, it invents the answers, generating inaccurate or completely misleading answers, relying on the fact that they could be probabilistically correct.
In jargon we call these mistakes "hallucinations". Indeed, when artificial intelligence does not have sufficient elements to make its calculation it could behave just like an unprepared student would, who does not want to make a fool of himself in front of the teacher and attempts to give probable instead of true answers… just to avoid admitting to the fact that he doesn’t know the answer– as it is not intelligent –.
The unlimited power of artificial intelligence lies in its ability to translate everything into computation. But can we really solve everything by making statistical correlations?
Which of God's decisions described in the Holy Scripture is based on the logic of statistical calculation?
There are things that simply cannot be calculated, because they cannot be related to numbers.
The questions the Pope asks at the end of his Message for the World Communication’s Day are not abstract or marginal issues.
They are an indictment of dominant thinking.
They set a limit to it, because there are things that cannot be measured; things that cannot be bought: relationships, care, compassion, collaboration are qualities that the reductionist, technicist, utilitarian paradigm of technology does not envision/consider.
To ask how to safeguard the professionalism and dignity of workers means on the one hand to vindicate the importance of a profession and the training that goes with it, and on the other to put man back at the center.
Ensuring that platforms are interoperable means that everyone is given back their freedom and that we are requesting a different economic model.
To speak of the responsibility of platforms is to investigate the boundary between the responsibilities of the individual and those of the platform that, through a system of algorithms, spreads what he or she writes.
And so on…
These are not problems that cannot be solved. Rather, they ask for a commitment to true freedom and wisdom.
The question is in what ways this tool will make relationships between individuals stronger and communities more united, or whether it will increase the loneliness of those who are already lonely, depriving each of us of the warmth that only a face-to-face communication can provide.
The question lies in whether it is possible or impossible to develop an artificial intelligence that brings more equality and that does not instead build new castes based precisely on informational dominance accepting as inevitable new forms of exploitation and inequality based on the possession of algorithms and the extraction of data from the inexhaustible mine of our lives.
It also lies in setting or not setting rules and limits; for example, on search engine indexing and de-indexing algorithms which are capable of exalting or erasing people and opinions, histories and cultures according to criteria that are unrelated to truth.
So, the basic question is not about machines, but about humans.
There are and always will be things that technology cannot replace. Like freedom. Like the miracle of the encounter between people. Like the surprise of the unexpected. Like Conversion. The outburst of ingenuity. Things like gratuitous love.
Pope Francis concludes his Message for the WDSC with these words: “It is up to us to decide whether we will become fodder for algorithms or if we will nourish our hearts with that freedom without which we cannot grow in wisdom.”
It is up to us to rediscover the immense gift of the Holy Eucharist, as nourishment of our communion. And of our communication.
Now more than ever what we need to do is to find an ethical, anthropological, wisdom-based approach to technology, in order to overturn the theorem that it is right to ask for anything that is possible instead of asking how to make what is right possible.
It is only communion, which is a connection grounded in love, that can make us less lonely, that can make us happy, and that can last through time. It is the root of all communication. And it is this communion that the Church is challenged to build up, even by means of artificial intelligence, to establish a network of communication based on the communion that unites us, on the truth that sets us free, on the love that explains everything.
Here is the ground where we will bear witness, as communicators, as a network of communicators, as journalists, as seekers of a truth that transcends us, that is born from relationship and from communion.
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[1] cf. Acts 4, 32– Pope Francis, General audience (21st of August 2019). https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/audiences/2019/documents/papa-francesco_20190821_udienza-generale.html
[2] Pope Francis, Spontaneous speech to employees of the Dicastery for Communication, on the occasion of the Plenary Assembly (23 September 2019). https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2019/september/documents/papa-francesco_20190923_dicastero-comunicazione.html
[3] Initiative that the Guardian is promoting for more than one year – every week a new story.
[4] Pope Francis, Address to the G7 in Borgo Egnazia (Puglia) (14 June 2024) https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2024/june/documents/20240614-g7-intelligenza-artificiale.html
