Silicon Valley priest: Encyclical gives new impetus to Church–Big Tech dialogue

By Salvatore Cernuzio

As Pope Leo XIV released his first encyclical, Magnifica humanitas, Fr. Brendan McGuire, the parish priest of St. Simon Parish of Los Altos, California, known as Silicon Valley, reflected on the “ten-year dialogue” that has gradually deepened the Holy See’s interest in Artificial Intelligence.

The Irish-born former engineer holds a master’s degree in computer science and cybersecurity, and has been a priest for twenty-six years.

Fr. McGuire lives and works among scientists, experts, and leaders in the tech industry. Over the years, he has become a confessor, point of reference, and even personal friend to some of them. Among them is Chris Olah, the co-founder of Anthropic, who joined Pope Leo at the presentation of the encyclical on Monday.

“Chris is a dear friend,” Fr. McGuire told journalists in the Paul VI Hall on the sidelines of the event.

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First contacts

“I was ordained 26 years ago, and I come from this sector,” Fr. McGuire explained. “So, even though I have been involved in many different activities, I never really left this world behind, and I have always kept up my relationships with people in it.”

“I held a managerial role in a company. My friends went on to become CEOs and CFOs, and I have stayed in touch with them over the past 25 years—very intensely over the past ten,” he recalled. “Many would come to me and say they were worried about what they saw emerging from behind the Valley. Some wanted to step back, saying, ‘It’s too much for me.’ Others would ask, ‘What can we do?’”

“So we began bringing groups together,” he continued. With the help of Bishop Paul Tighe, Secretary of the Dicastery for Culture and Education, they began to organize “listening sessions.”

‘A search for wisdom’

This process began around eight or nine years ago and eventually took concrete form in the creation of the Institute for Technology, Ethics and Culture at Santa Clara University, in collaboration with the Dicastery for Culture and Education.

“We also published a book, a handbook entitled Ethics in the Age of Disruptive Technologies,” Fr. McGuire said. “And from there, we began to receive more and more feedback.”

Last autumn, he met Mr. Olah, and “a very close relationship was born, based on mutual listening.”

Bishop Tighe visited California for the Minerva Talks with Silicon Valley executives, while many other meetings took place in Rome. All of this helped strengthen dialogue between the Catholic Church, other religions, and the world of technology in a shared “search for wisdom.”

“They felt they had found in us a partner on this journey,” Fr. McGuire said. “And that is what we have tried to be.”

A stepstone on the journey

In this sense, Magnifica humanitas can be seen as the seal of a long and complex journey, in which the Church seeks to look, “in the light of the Gospel,” at the challenges and transformations of our time.

It is an effort to enter into dialogue with those driving these transformations, so that the Church’s contribution may be more incisive and immediate.

“It would be a greater risk not to take the risk of entering into dialogue together,” Fr. McGuire said, rejecting criticism that a company such as Anthropic might use the Vatican for an exercise in “social washing” or reputation-cleansing.

“The greatest risk is to do absolutely nothing,” he insisted. “I keep thinking back to the speech Martin Luther King gave in 1967—a powerful speech on the importance of using our voice. He said the fierce urgency of the present moment meant that silence would be betrayal. I think we are at a moment in history when we have to use our voice and to dialogue.”

Constant engagement in dialogue

“As Church, we certainly do not agree on everything,” Fr. McGuire said. “But it is essential that we truly follow Pope Francis’ idea of synod: listening, encountering, and working with people. And I think that so far this dialogue has been very fruitful.”

That dialogue must continue even when the Church’s approach is critical or prophetic, as it is in Magnifica humanitas with regard to Big Tech: the major technology companies that hold power and control “for the few,” often to the detriment of those already living on the margins of economic and social life.

“I think many people are afraid of the impact technology will have on them, on their children, and on the world of work. And, to be honest, that fear is well founded,” Fr. McGuire said. “At the same time, technology has always brought displacement, change, and transition.”

“I understand the perception that they are the enemy,” he continued. “I come from Ireland, and there we had a war in the North, where people said that anyone who spoke with the enemy was himself the enemy. That is wrong and misleading. If you want peace, you have to dialogue even with those perceived as enemies. The same is true with technology: we must dialogue with it. They are building our future, with or without us.”

A first step, not the end

The next step, Fr. McGuire concluded, is “to create what I call ‘wisdom circles’—a table where people can sit down and listen to one another.”

“And we will begin right away,” he said. “Tomorrow, we already have meetings planned with introductory sessions. The hope is that, God willing, a delegation will travel to Silicon Valley to listen from a broader perspective.”

“This is the first step, not the end,” he said. “It is the beginning of the dialogue, not its conclusion.”