The prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith opened the dicastery’s plenary session this week with a strong call for humility in thought, theology and online discourse. Source: OSV News.
He said that the capacity for thought is one that “does not mean that human beings possess a … comprehensive capacity for perceiving reality,” and warned that human reason – even when aided by advanced technology – can never grasp reality in its fullness, a capacity that belongs to God alone.
Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández said in his meditation, titled “Ask not of the light, but of the fire,” that even with the help of “the most powerful technologies imaginable, it is impossible for a human mind to be aware of reality in its entirety and in every aspect. This is possible only for God.”
He spoke only days after Pope Leo XIV published his message for the 60th World Communications Day, in which he outlined both challenges and solutions for facing technology and artificial intelligence.
“The more science and technology advance,” Cardinal Fernández said, “the more we must keep alive that awareness of our limits, of our need for God so as not to fall into a terrible deception, the same one that led to the excesses of the Inquisition, to the world wars, to the Holocaust, to the massacres in Gaza, all situations that are justified with fallacious arguments.”
He said a parallel thing can happen in our lives – when people believe they fully understand reality or God’s will, they risk justifying violence, exclusion, and atrocities: “In fact, we repeat that deception by living too confidently in what we know.”
The prefect of the doctrinal dicastery said the solution to such an approach is humility – intellectual, spiritual and theological.
“To fully understand anything, we must allow ourselves to be enlightened by God, we must invoke him, pray to him, listen to him, let him guide us amid the shadows,” Cardinal Fernández said.
He also stressed that listening to others is crucial before speaking out – to “open ourselves to other points of view” – “it is good for us to pay attention to the ‘peripheries’ from which things are seen differently.”
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Cardinal Fernández warns against ‘ex cathedra’ condemnations online, urges humility (By Paulina Guzik, OSV News)
