Pope Francis meets Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and her 6-year-old daughter on Jan. 10, 2023. / Credit: Vatican Media
Vatican City, Apr 27, 2024 / 12:30 pm (CNA).
Pope Francis will attend the G7 summit in June to speak about the ethics of artificial intelligence, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni announced Friday.
The Group of Seven (G7) industrialized nations summit is being held in the southern Italian region of Puglia from June 13–15 and will bring together leaders from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United States.
Meloni, who will chair the summit, said in a video message on April 26 that Pope Francis had accepted her invitation to attend a session of the summit on the topic of artificial intelligence.
“This is the first time in history that a pontiff will participate in the work of a G7,” Meloni said.
“I am convinced that the presence of His Holiness will make a decisive contribution to the definition of a regulatory, ethical, and cultural framework for artificial intelligence,” she added.
The Vatican has been heavily involved in the conversation of artificial intelligence ethics, hosting high-level discussions with scientists and tech executives on the ethics of artificial intelligence in 2016 and 2020.
The pope has hosted Microsoft President Brad Smith, IBM Executive John Kelly III, and most recently, Chuck Robbins, the chief executive of Cisco Systems, in Rome — each of whom has signed the Vatican’s artificial intelligence ethics pledge, the Rome Call for AI Ethics.
The Rome Call, a document by the Pontifical Academy for Life, underlines the need for the ethical use of AI according to the principles of transparency, inclusion, accountability, impartiality, reliability, security, and privacy.
Pope Francis chose artificial intelligence as the theme of his 2024 peace message, which recommended that global leaders adopt an international treaty to regulate the development and use of AI.
The pope established the RenAIssance Foundation in April 2021 as a Vatican nonprofit foundation to support anthropological and ethical reflection of new technologies on human life.
The Vatican has confirmed the pope’s participation in the G7 summit.
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Washington D.C., Nov 1, 2022 / 18:00 pm (CNA).
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is warning about the dangers of health professionals prescribing an abortion drug to women before they are p… […]
The President of the Communications Commission of the 2024 International Eucharistic Congress, Father Livingston Olivares (left), accompanies EWTN Vice President for Programming and Production Peter Gagnon (center-right), EWTN Vice President for Spanish-language Production, Marketing, and Radio Enrique Duprat (center-left), EWTN Production Director Michael Holmes (far right), and IEC Quito 2024 Communications Coordinator Marcelo Mejía (front, kneeling) at the Monument to the Equator, the exact location of the Equator (from which the country of Ecuador takes its name) on the outskirts of the country’s capital city of Quito, site of the 2024 International Eucharistic Congress. / Credit: Communications Commission of the 2024 International Eucharistic Congress
ACI Prensa Staff, May 21, 2024 / 06:40 am (CNA).
The 53rd International Eucharistic Congress (IEC) has chosen EWTN as the official channel for providing live coverage of the event, which will take place from Sept. 8–15 in Quito, Ecuador.
“The 53rd International Eucharistic Congress, which will be held in Quito Sept. 8–15, has chosen EWTN as its official channel, which will broadcast everything related” to this great event, said Father Juan Carlos Garzón, secretary-general of the IEC Quito 2024, in a statement sent from Rome to ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner.
The theme for this year’s International Eucharistic Congress is “Fraternity to Heal the World.” On Monday, the Vatican also announced that Pope Francis designated Cardinal Kevin Farrell, prefect for the Dicastery for the Laity, the Family, and Life, as pontifical legate to the congress.
Garzón was in Rome last week as part of a delegation, chaired by Alfredo Espinoza Mateus, archbishop of Quito and primate of Ecuador, “to hold a series of meetings with the main papal authorities.”
Since the beginning of the preparations for IEC 2024, Garzón added: “EWTN has been present at the orientation and training for IEC 2024 communications personnel.”
Logo for the 53rd International Eucharistic Congress that will take place in Quito, Ecuador, from Sept. 8-15, 2024. Credit: Communications Commission of the 2024 International Eucharistic Congress
EWTN preparations for IEC Quito 2024
In tandem, to coordinate EWTN’s transmissions of IEC Quito 2024, a team from the network visited the Ecuadorian capital, including the Quito Metropolitan Convention Center, where the congress will be held.
The team was comprised of EWTN Vice President for Programming and Production Peter Gagnon, EWTN Director of Production Michael Holmes, and EWTN Vice President for Spanish-language Production, Marketing, and Radio Enrique Duprat.
Gagnon said EWTN transmissions of the event will be offered in Spanish, English, and German. “This will be a wonderful event for those attending and for those watching,” Gagnon said.
“For EWTN, it is an immense joy to be the channel for the Quito 2024 International Eucharistic Congress,” Duprat said. “It is essential for us to be the platform on which, no matter where our audience is, everyone can enjoy the most important Catholic events in the Church.”
As for coverage details, Duprat said: “The plan is to be able to offer this International Eucharistic Congress live and direct from Quito and in multiple languages [Spanish, English, and German] both through our television and radio signals, the internet, and through our digital app.”
The event coincides with the 150th anniversary of the 1874 consecration of Ecuador to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. In 1886, Quito was also the site of the first National Eucharistic Congress.
During their preparatory visit, the EWTN team traveled the route of a procession that will take place on Sept. 14 in the historic center of Quito, which will begin with a Mass in San Francisco Plaza and then head to the Basilica of the National Vow, where benediction will be given.
They also visited the IEC offices, where they were received by Garzón, who explained how the organization of the event is progressing, including the schedule of a theological symposium to be held Sept. 4–7, just prior to the Sept. 8–15 congress.
The EWTN delegation also visited the Middle of the World Park and Monument to the Equator, marking the equator dividing the northern and southern hemispheres and where a Liturgy of the Word is planned with emphasis on care for creation.
Registration underway
Registration for the International Eucharistic Congress, both for the theological symposium and for the congress itself, is underway and available through the event website.
The largest Catholic media organization in the world, EWTN’s 11 global TV channels and numerous regional channels are broadcast in multiple languages 24 hours a day, seven days a week to over 425 million television households in more than 160 countries and territories. EWTN platforms also include radio services transmitted through SIRIUS/XM, iHeart Radio, and more than 600 domestic and international AM and FM radio affiliates and a worldwide shortwave radio service.
Headquartered in Washington, D.C., EWTN News operates multiple global news services, including Catholic News Agency; The National Catholic Register newspaper and digital platform; ACI Prensa in Spanish; ACI Digital in Portuguese; ACI Stampa in Italian; ACI Africa in English, French, and Portuguese; ACI Mena in Arabic; CNA Deutsch in German; and ChurchPop, a digital platform that creates content in several languages. It also produces numerous television news programs including “EWTN News Nightly,” “EWTN News In Depth,” “EWTN Pro-Life Weekly,” and “The World Over with Raymond Arroyo.”
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
Stephen Destin is executive director of the Partnership for the Reconstruction of the Church in Haiti. / Credit: Screenshot/EWTN News Nightly
CNA Staff, Mar 6, 2024 / 15:30 pm (CNA).
During the latest round of violence in Haiti, heavily armed g… […]
2 Comments
The link “Rome Call for AI Ethics” brings up the face and quote of one
Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, who has spoken in support of legalized medically assisted suicide, calling it ‘feasible’ despite the clear teachings of the Catholic Church against it.” (NCRegister) He has notoriously appointed pro-choice persons to the Pontifical Academy. Now he fingertips AI ‘ethics’ as if he, together with Francis, know anything about that beyond the power it has to be used for ill or for good. The gist of the Archbishop’s statement on AI is milquetoast: “It is a call to recognize and then to assume the responsibility that comes from the multiplication of options made possible by new digital technologies.”
The link “Rome Call for AI Ethics” brings up the face and quote of one
Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, who has spoken in support of legalized medically assisted suicide, calling it ‘feasible’ despite the clear teachings of the Catholic Church against it.” (NCRegister) He has notoriously appointed pro-choice persons to the Pontifical Academy. Now he fingertips AI ‘ethics’ as if he, together with Francis, know anything about that beyond the power it has to be used for ill or for good. The gist of the Archbishop’s statement on AI is milquetoast: “It is a call to recognize and then to assume the responsibility that comes from the multiplication of options made possible by new digital technologies.”
His Holiness Pope Francis is the voice of the voiceless.