Denver, Colo., Sep 18, 2019 / 04:34 pm (CNA).- Once a man is ordained a priest for the Catholic Church, he acts, according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “in persona Christi capitis”: in the person of Christ the Head.
During the ordination ceremony, the priest’s hands are anointed with oil, he lies prostrate on the ground to symbolize the laying down of his life, and the bishop’s hands are laid on his head. Like baptism and confirmation, ordination leaves an “indelible mark” on the priest’s soul.
During his priesthood, the priest uses his mouth to preach and to speak the words of blessing and consecration, his hands to elevate and distribute the Eucharist, and his heart, mind and soul to pray.
Now, what if the priest were a robot?
In an interview with Vox, Franciscan Sister Ilia Delio, who holds the Josephine C. Connelly Endowed Chair of Theology at Villanova University, said that Catholicism should “reimagine” the priesthood and consider robots instead of, or alongside, men.
“The Catholic notion would say the priest is ontologically changed upon ordination. Is that really true?” Delio told Vox. “We have these fixed philosophical ideas and AI challenges those ideas – it challenges Catholicism to move toward a post-human priesthood.”
Delio said robotic priests would have certain advantages – including being incapable of committing sexual abuse.
But numerous Catholic experts told CNA that a robot priest would be sacramentally impossible in the Catholic Church, explicitly because they are not humans.
Sister Mary Christa Nutt, RSM, told CNA that robots cannot be priests because they are incapable of having an intellect or a will with which to cooperate with God’s grace.
“It has to do with our Catholic understanding of the need for human mediation, cooperation with interior grace,” Nutt told CNA.
“We’re not dualists,” she said. “So we don’t separate the importance of the rites, and the bodily involvement of all the senses in the rites are very important. But they don’t of themselves suffice. There has to be the interior cooperation of intellect and will.”
Robots are programmed, she said, and are incapable of having a will and an intellect or an interior prayer life of their own. A human soul, conformed to Christ, and belonging to someone willing to participate in the sacraments, is what makes the grace of those sacraments efficacious, she said.
“We believe that the priest is in the person of Christ, so only a human being can participate in the person of Christ with intellect and will,” Nutt said.
“How would a robot cooperate by intellect and will interiorly with grace to be conformed to Christ ontologically? It just makes absolutely no sense. It’s so outside the realm of possibility when you have a sacramental logic and you have absolutely no dualism in the religion,” she said.
Fr. John Kartje is the rector of Mundelein Seminary in Illinois. Kartje told CNA that his background in physics meant that he found the story about the possibility of robot priests intriguing.
He said that according to the article, Buddhist priests might be possible, because they are people simply guiding people along a path. But for Catholics, he said, their faith necessitates an encounter with a person – God.
“For Christians, prayer or any sort of religious activity is not primarily a path, but it’s an encounter with a person…with God. And so, that for me is the fundamental distinction. What the priest is doing, he’s acting in persona Christi, in the person of Christ,” Kartje said.
“He’s also helping to facilitate in a sacramental way making really present that encounter between the Catholic and the divine, but not just the divine as some sort of vague concept, but with the real person of God, that real person of Jesus Christ.”
Kartje added that that does not mean that Catholics should fear technological advancements or even artificial intelligence, because these can be helpful, even in the context of faith.
“I mean, in some degree, we all make use of simple artificial intelligence without thinking about it in the same way. Our phones are based on algorithms, which make decisions without our directly being involved with them,” he said. “Most priests have breviaries on their phones, which program ahead and let us pull up the (daily Mass) readings.”
Sister Nutt also said that technology can be a helpful tool in learning the faith. In the Vox article, author Sigal Samuel mentions the SanTO robots, developed by a Japanese roboticist, which resemble saint figurines and can recite certain prayers if prompted.
Such robots, Nutt said, could help children memorize prayers, but “the prayer has no significance outside of its material reality, unless it’s said by a human being who offers it to God interiorly.”
When we are faced with advanced technologies, Fr. Kartje said, we should allow the questions that they bring about to help us hone our understanding and definitions of human beings and free will.
Still, he said, a robot could never replace a person, because it cannot encounter God or act on its own free will.
“A robot is the encounter of an algorithm with the natural world, and a human is the encounter of the divine with the natural world,” he said.
Dr. Kevin Miller, an associate professor of theology at Franciscan University of Steubenville, told CNA that in order to understand the priesthood, Catholics must look to Jesus Christ. And Jesus is, decidedly, not a robot.
“The sacraments are instituted by Christ and configure us to Christ in various ways. In Christ, God the Son took on a human nature ‘for us men (human beings) and for our salvation,’” he said, quoting the Nicene Creed.
“The sacraments are part of the same saving plan. The sacraments are for human beings, in the sense that they can be neither received nor administered by robots or AI devices or the like (or any other non-human created beings),” he said.
“All of this is, pace Sister Ilia Delio, ‘really true,’ and cannot be ‘reimagined.’”
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Would the judge have objected to the Code of Hammurabi (composed 1755–1750 BC) being displayed?
From the Code’s Wikipedia entry (links omitted):
Modern scholars responded to the Code with admiration at its perceived fairness and respect for the rule of law, and at the complexity of Old Babylonian society. There was also much discussion of its influence on the Mosaic Law. Scholars quickly identified lex talionis—the “eye for an eye” principle—underlying the two collections. Debate among Assyriologists has since centred around several aspects of the Code: its purpose, its underlying principles, its language, and its relation to earlier and later law collections.
Despite the uncertainty surrounding these issues, Hammurabi is regarded outside Assyriology as an important figure in the history of law and the document as a true legal code. The U.S. Capitol has a relief portrait of Hammurabi alongside those of other historic lawgivers. There are replicas of the stele in numerous institutions, including the headquarters of the United Nations in New York City, the Pergamon Museum in Berlin and the University of Chicago’s Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures.
I love your comment. But the thing is, the 10 Commandments are just letters in a list of suggestions and nobody can really fully understand them in the west side of the planet in the age we live at. So, what’s the point of displaying it for? We are not fanatics cheering for a religion or dogmatic people or nationalists. Maybe we should paraphrase it so people can understand it and fully appreciate it
Allow me to show an example:
1. Thou shall have no other Gods before me.
USA/2025 VERSION:
1. Americans should not chose any alternative to love, truth, light and unity in their dealings.
2. You shall not make for yourself any graven image.
USA/2025 VERSION:
We shall never replace the conexion to our foundations that makes us good citizens for any material gain or material remainder. Who we are is priceless and cannot be replaced by objects and symbols.
3. You shall not use the Name of the Lord in vain.
3. We should have respect for truth and not mislead or deceive using anything even God as leverage for validation or credibility. This is wrong.
4. Remember the Sabbath day and keep it Holy.
4. We must remember that this world cannot rush us to it’s terms. The USA has survived many wars, natural disasters and cultural challenges by making pauses constantly to remember who we are and where do we belong and where we are going to.
Etc…
If we were to explain the Ten Commandments, nobody could argue that it causes division due to religious bias.
After all, the whole purpose of religion is to teach us, lead us, build us up and help us to finish every day stronger until God calls us home. So, fighting over this kinda defeats the purpose of the Ten Commandments.
Mister Flynn. I adore Mesopotamia, I really enjoyed your comment, but do you really think we benefit from giving bunch of trouble-makers, like me, who needs to show up to court here and there because we can’t just play by the rules?
Absolutely not. It’s better to show the benefit of these magnificent decalogue. The Bible taught in context makes sense and taught for our context makes life much better for us if we so choose to use it.
Are you a Protestant? Protestants, Catholics, and Jews all agree on the text, but not on where one commandment ends and the next begins. You are using the Protestant form (as, undoubtedly, the State of Texas would).
The Constitution, of which this judge obviously knows little, guarantees the Freedom of religion, not freedom from religion.
We believe that God’s Moral Law as summarized in the 10 Commandments are based on Moral Absolutes which are already written on very person’s heart and mind. Just read Romans 2:15