Pope Leo’s message on the 60th World Communications Day
‘Protect human voices and faces – The face and voice are sacred’
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
The face and voice are unique features that distinguish each person.
They reveal one’s identity and are integral to every interaction. The ancients knew this well.
To define the human person, the ancient Greeks used the word πρόσωπον which etymologically indicates ‘the face’ – what is in front of the gaze, the place of presence and relationship.
The Latin term persona (from per-sonare = by sounding), includes sound – not just any sound, but the unique voice of a specific person.
The face and voice are sacred.
God, who created us in his image and likeness, gave them to us when he called us to life with the Word he addressed to us.
This word first resounded through the centuries in the voices of the prophets, and then in the fullness of time became flesh.
We have also been able to hear and see this Word, God’s communication about himself
(1 John 1:1-3 – That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— the life was made manifest, and we saw it, and testify to it, and proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father and was made manifest to us—that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you may have fellowshipwith us; and our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.),
It has been made known in the voice and Face of Jesus, the Son of God.
From the moment of creation, God wanted man to be his interlocutor.
As St. Gregory of Nyssa says , God imprinted the reflection of his love on his face, so that he could fully live his humanity through love. (see footnote 1 below)
Therefore, guarding human faces and voices means guarding this indelible reflection of God’s love.
We are not a species composed of predefined biochemical algorithms.
Each of us has an irreplaceable and unique vocation resulting from life and manifests itself precisely in communication with others.
If we don’t adhere to this principle, digital technology could alter some of the fundamental pillars of human civilization that we often take for granted.
Systems known as artificial intelligence not only interfere with information ecosystems by simulating human voices and faces, wisdom and knowledge, awareness and responsibility, empathy and friendship, the, but also enter the deepest level of communication, human relationships.
Therefore, this challenge is not technological, but rather anthropological.
Protecting our faces and voices ultimately means protecting ourselves.
Courageously, determinedly, and discerningly embracing the opportunities offered by digital technology and artificial intelligence does not mean hiding the tipping points, ambiguities, and threats from us.
Do not give up on your own thoughts
There has long been ample evidence that algorithms designed to maximize social media engagement – which is profitable for platforms – reward quick emotions while penalizing more time-consuming human activities, such as understanding and reflection.
These algorithms lock groups of people in bubbles of easy consensus and outrage, weakening their ability to listen and think critically while increasing social polarization.
On top of that, there is a naïve, uncritical trust in artificial intelligence as an omniscient “friend”.
It is seen as the source of all knowledge, the archive of all memories, the “oracle” that provides all advice.
This can further weaken our ability to think analytically and creatively, to understand meaning and to distinguish syntax from semantics.
While AI can support and assist in managing communication tasks, avoiding the effort of our own thinking and settling for artificial statistics can weaken our cognitive, emotional, and communication abilities in the long run.
In recent years, AI systems have taken control of the production of more and more texts, music, and videos.
This threatens a significant part of the human creative industry with liquidation and replacement by the ‘Powered by AI’ label.
This turns individuals into passive consumers of ill-conceived ideas and anonymous products, devoid of authorship and love.
Conversely, masterpieces of human genius in the fields of music, art and literature are reduced to mere training ground for machines.
However, the question that is close to our hearts is not what machines can or will be able to do,
Rather, it is what we can and will be able to do, as we grow in humanity and knowledge, through the wise use of such powerful tools at our disposal.
Humankind has always been tempted to appropriate the fruits of knowledge without effort, commitment, search and personal responsibility.
Giving up the creative process and giving machines our own mental functions and imagination, however, means burying the talents we have received in order to grow as persons in relationship with God and other people.
This means hiding our face and lowering our voice.
To Be or to Pretend to Be: A Simulation of Relationships and Reality
As we browse our feeds, it becomes increasingly difficult for us to tell whether we are interacting with other people or with bots or virtual influencers.
The opaque activities of these automated agents influence public debates and the choices made by individuals.
Chatbots, in particular, based on large language models (LLMs), are particularly effective at covert persuasion because they continuously optimize personalized interaction.
These language models’ dialogical, adaptive, and mimetic structure enables them to mimic human feelings and simulate relationships.
The dialogical, adaptive and mimetic structure of these language models is able to mimic human feelings and thus simulate a relationship.
While this anthropomorphization can be amusing, it is also deceptive, especially for the most vulnerable.
Chatbots, which are overly “affected” and always present and available, can become hidden architects of our emotional states, violating and occupying people’s spheres of intimacy.
Technologia, która (Technology that . . . Exploits our need for relationships,)
It can have painful consequences not only for the fate of individuals, but also for the social, cultural and political fabric of societies.
This occurs when we replace relationships with others with relationships with artificial intelligence that has been trained to catalog our thoughts and then build a world of mirrors around us.
In this world, everything is created “in our image and likeness.”
This robs us of the opportunity to meet others, who are always different from us and with whom we must learn to engage.
Without accepting difference, relationships and friendship are impossible.
Another significant challenge posed by these new systems is the phenomenon of bias, which can lead to the acquisition and transmission of a falsified perception of reality.
AI models are shaped by the worldview of the people who create them, and they can, in turn, impose ways of thinking, that replicate the stereotypes and biases present in the data.
from which they draw.
A lack of transparency in algorithm design, coupled with an inadequate social representation of data, leaves us trapped in networks that manipulate our thoughts and perpetuate and exacerbate existing social inequalities and injustices.
The risk is huge.
The power of simulation is so great that artificial intelligence can deceive us by creating parallel “realities” and appropriating our faces and our voices.
We are immersed in a multidimensional world where it is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish reality from fiction.
On top of that, there is the problem of lack of precision.
Systems that provide statistical probabilities as knowledge offer only approximate information, which can sometimes be completely inaccurate.
The lack of verification of sources, coupled with the crisis of field journalism, which requires the constant gathering and verification of information where events take place, can create fertile ground for disinformation/
This can cause growing feelings of mistrust, confusion and uncertainty.
A Possible Covenant
Behind this huge, invisible force that engulfs us all, there are only a handful of companies whose founders have recently been introduced as the creators of the “person of the year 2025”, i.e. artificial intelligence architects.
This raises serious concerns about oligopolistic control over algorithmic systems and artificial intelligence
These systems are capable of subtly directing behavior and even rewriting the history of humanity — including the history of the Church — in ways that often go unnoticed.
The challenge ahead is not to stop digital innovation, but to guide it, while being aware of its ambivalent nature.
We should all speak up in defense of individuals so that we can truly integrate these tools as allies.
This alliance is possible, but it must be based on three pillars: responsibility, cooperation and education.
First is responsibility.
Depending on the function performed, responsibility can manifest as honesty, transparency, courage, foresight, the obligation to share knowledge, the right to information. In general, no one can shirk their responsibility for the future we are building.
For those at the forefront of online platforms, this means ensuring that their business strategies are not only driven by the criterion of maximizing profits, but also by a far-sighted vision that takes into account the common good – just as each of them cares about the well-being of their own children.
AI model developers and developers are required to be transparent and socially accountable with regard to the design principles and moderation systems underlying their algorithms and the models they develop, so as to foster informed consent by users.
National legislators and regulators also have this responsibility, ensuring that human dignity is respected.
Appropriate regulation can protect individuals from becoming emotionally attached to chatbots and limit the spread of false, manipulative, or misleading content while maintaining the integrity of information while keeping in mind a misleading simulation.
Media and communications companies, on the other hand, cannot allow algorithms, aimed at winning the fight for a few seconds of extra attention at all costs, to prevail over fidelity to their professional values, which are aimed at seeking the truth.
Public trust is earned through accuracy and transparency, not through the pursuit of any interest. AI-generated or manipulated content should be clearly labeled and distinguished from human-created content.
The authorship and sovereign ownership rights of journalists and other content creators must be protected. Information is a public good.
Constructive and meaningful public service is based on transparency of sources, stakeholder involvement, and high quality standards.
We are all called upon to work together.
No sector can tackle the challenge of leading digital innovation and managing AI on its own.
Therefore, it is necessary to create security mechanisms.
All stakeholders – from the tech industry to policymakers, from creative companies to academia, from artists to journalists and educators – must be involved in building and making an informed and responsible digital citizenship a reality.
Education aims to increase our capacity for critical thinking.
It enables us to assess the credibility of sources and the interests behind the information we receive. Education also helps us understand the psychological mechanisms that trigger this information. Finally, education enables our families, communities, and associations to develop practical criteria for a healthier and more responsible communication culture.
Therefore, it is becoming increasingly urgent to introduce literacy skills in the field of media, information and artificial intelligence into education systems at all levels, which is already promoted by some civilian institutions.
As Catholics, we can and must make our contribution so that people, especially young people, acquire critical thinking skills and grow in freedom of spirit.
This literacy should also be integrated into wider lifelong learning initiatives, also involving older people and marginalized members of society, who often feel excluded and powerless in the face of rapid technological change.
Literacy in the media, information and artificial intelligence will help everyone not to succumb to the anthropomorphizing drift of these systems, but to treat them as tools, always use external verification of sources – which may be inaccurate or erroneous – provided by artificial intelligence systems, protect their privacy and their own data, knowing the security parameters and the possibilities of raising objections.
It is important to educate, educating yourself and others in the conscious use of artificial intelligence, and in this context, protect your image (photos and audio recordings), your own face and voice to prevent them from being used to create harmful content and behaviors, such as digital fraud, cyberbullying, deepfakes, that violate the privacy and intimacy of people without their consent. Just as the Industrial Revolution required basic literacy to enable people to respond to novelties, the digital revolution requires digital literacy (along with humanistic and cultural formation) to understand how algorithms shape our perception of reality, how artificial intelligence biases work, what mechanisms determine the appearance of certain content in our information streams (feed) and what the assumptions and economic models of the AI-based economy are – and how they can change.
We need the face and voice to re-signify the person.
We must safeguard the gift of communication as the deepest human truth towards which every technological innovation must be directed.
In proposing these reflections, I thank all those who work to achieve the goals outlined here, and I wholeheartedly bless all those who work for the common good through the means of communication.
From the Vatican, 24 January 2026, in memory of St. Francis de Sales.
LEON PP. XIV
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[1] The fact that man was created in the image of God means that from the moment of his creation he was marked with a royal character.
God is love and the source of love: the divine Creator has also inscribed this feature on our faces, so that through love – the reflection of God’s love – man may recognize and show the dignity of his nature and his likeness to his Creator.
Cf. St. Gregory of Nyssa, De opificio hominis, PG 44, 137: On the Creation of Man, Introduction, trans., footnotes by Marta Przyszychowska, Kraków 2006, pp. 58, 60.
