In Chiclayo, Pope Leo calls on local clergy to reject clericalism, warns students against soulless tech
Pope Leo XIV urged clergy and church leaders in Chiclayo to turn synodality into action by rejecting clericalism and serving the community. He said lay participation is an expression of baptismal dignity and called for decisions that value diverse cultures, vocations and charisms. Leo urged the Church to accompany vulnerable communities and work for justice, peace and the common good. Addressing students at a Catholic university, he warned about technology that threatens human dignity.
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Pope Leo XIV returned to Chiclayo, Peru, where he had served as bishop from 2015 to 2023, and urged church leaders to make synodality tangible by rejecting clericalism and expanding lay participation. At a university gathering, he cautioned that technology detached from human dignity and justice can deepen exclusion rather than improve life.
Speaking to bishops, priests, seminarians and lay leaders at the Shrine of Our Lady of Peace on Nov. 13, Leo said that putting synodality into practice requires church members—especially pastors—to examine their conduct. He described church authority as a form of service and discernment, and said lay participation is an expression of baptismal dignity, not a concession.
The gathering included testimonies from a priest, a religious sister and a laywoman. They described the importance of listening to laypeople, discerning and making decisions together, and carrying pastoral work into communities—for example, through door-to-door visits with a statue of the Virgin Mary.
Leo said communion does not mean uniformity, but should value differences in cultures, vocations and ministries. He also said that accompanying people facing poverty, migration and other hardships, and working for justice, peace and the common good, are requirements of the church’s mission.
At Santo Toribio de Mogrovejo Catholic University, Leo warned against treating higher education as merely preparation for the job market. He said progress that disregards justice and workers’ dignity can become “a mechanism of oppression and exclusion,” and that technology without a human purpose does not truly improve life.
He cautioned against a “technocratic paradigm” that reduces reality to material data and treats efficiency as the highest value. University rector Patricia Campos Olazábal likewise urged students to discern truth amid artificial intelligence and not mistake algorithms for what makes people human.
Drawing on the example of St. Turibius, the university’s namesake, Leo called on the institution to use scientific innovation to bridge social divides and address society’s wounds. He described contemporary forms of moral and civic illiteracy as forces that exclude the poor.
Leo encouraged students to connect prayer and study with action, and urged professors to put truth before opinion and justice before self-interest. He also called on academic leaders to direct their expertise toward social justice, the needs of the poorest and care for creation.
Synodality, human dignity, and technology in Catholic social thought
Catholic social thought brings synodality, human dignity, and technology together by asking not only what digital tools can do, but whose dignity they serve, who has a voice in shaping them, and whether they strengthen communion or deepen exclusion. Technology can support connection, education, healing, and mission, but its value depends on human choices in its design, financing, regulation, and use. Synodality offers a way to make those choices through shared responsibility and attention to people who might otherwise be unheard.
Catholic social thought treats human dignity as a criterion for evaluating technology, not as one interest to balance against efficiency or profit. Pope Francis stated that emerging technologies are ethically sound to the extent that they respect and help express the intrinsic dignity of every person. He also warned that digital technologies can increase inequality—not only in wealth, but in access to social and political influence.
Pope Leo XIV’s 2026 teaching makes an important distinction: technology is not inherently evil, yet it is not socially neutral in practice. Its effects reflect the priorities of the people and institutions that create, fund, regulate, and use it. The central question, then, is not simply whether to welcome or reject technology, but whether it is being directed toward shared human flourishing or toward domination and division.
“Technology has the power to heal, connect, educate and protect our common home: but it can also divide, exclude and generate new forms of injustice.”
This means that convenience, speed, scale, or accuracy cannot by themselves establish that a technology is good. A system may work efficiently while excluding people, amplifying prejudice, or concentrating power. Pope Leo therefore describes responsible technological development as a shared task: institutions must regulate and protect without simply taking over; businesses must measure success in relation to work and dignity; communities and educators must rebuild trust; and citizens must cultivate responsibility and discernment. Innovation is authentic when it serves integral human development and respects the dignity of every person.
The dignity of a person cannot be reduced to a data profile or prediction. Pope Francis cautioned against delegating social and economic judgments to algorithms that process personal data, especially when that data may be gathered without people’s knowledge or shaped by social prejudices. He emphasized that a person’s past behavior should not be used to foreclose the possibility of growth, change, and future contribution.
This is more than a technical concern about whether an algorithm is accurate. It is a moral concern about what kind of judgment is being made and whether people affected by it can be treated as persons rather than as collections of measurable traits. Automated decisions can influence access to opportunities and social participation; when their assumptions or effects are hidden, people may have little ability to challenge an unfair outcome. The Catholic concern is not that data or automated tools can never assist human judgment, but that they must not become substitutes for responsible judgment or grounds for denying someone the respect owed to a human person. Pope Francis accordingly insisted that algorithms must not condition respect for dignity or eliminate compassion, mercy, forgiveness, and hope for change.
That concern also connects technology to justice and solidarity. Pope Francis identified dignity, justice, subsidiarity, and solidarity as principles that can guide ethical development in the digital world. In practical terms, this calls for attention to whether benefits and burdens are shared fairly, whether people and communities have an appropriate voice in decisions affecting them, and whether technological systems serve people without discrimination or exclusion.
In this context, synodality is more than holding a meeting or gathering opinions. The Synod’s final document links digital life with the Church’s synodal dimension: online connections can create new opportunities for encounter and dialogue, and Christian digital communities are called to form relationships of belonging and mutual engagement. But the document also warns that constant connection can coexist with loneliness and marginalization, and that social media can be exploited to generate manipulative polarization.
A synodal approach therefore asks how digital spaces actually shape relationships. Do they help people listen, encounter one another, and participate in the Church’s mission? Or do they encourage isolation, hostility, or the amplification of voices that already hold power? The Dicastery for Communications describes Christians on social media not as isolated “individual influencers,” but as “weavers of communion”: people who share knowledge and skills, work together, promote human dignity, reduce digital inequality, and give voice to people who are marginalized.
Synodality also matters in decisions about technology itself. Pope Francis argued that genuinely inclusive dialogue is needed to discern wisely how artificial intelligence and digital technologies can serve the human family. In that light, listening is not an optional courtesy after systems are designed; it is part of responsible discernment. People affected by a technology—especially those who could be excluded or harmed—need meaningful consideration in evaluating its purpose and effects. The available sources support that principle, though they do not specify a single technical or governance procedure that will fit every case.
For Church communities, these teachings suggest a practical set of questions. A digital tool should be assessed not only for whether it works, but also for whom it serves, whom it leaves out, and what kinds of relationships it encourages. Does it widen access to information and participation, or deepen digital inequality? Does it foster encounter and truthful dialogue, or intensify manipulation and polarization? Are decisions made with adequate attention to those who may be affected? These questions follow from the Synod’s account of both the possibilities and dangers of digital culture and the Church’s call to put human dignity and the common good at the center of technological development.
The Church’s response is not to withdraw from digital life. The Synod calls local Churches to accompany those engaged in digital mission, and the Dicastery for Communications urges Christians to act together in ways that promote dignity, access, and solidarity. The goal is neither uncritical adoption nor blanket rejection, but careful discernment and active responsibility.
Taken together, these sources present technology as a field of moral and social responsibility. Human dignity sets the standard; synodality helps a community listen and discern; and Catholic social principles guide action toward justice, participation, solidarity, and the common good. Technology becomes a genuine service to humanity when it helps people flourish together rather than reducing persons to data, excluding them from participation, or concentrating power over their lives.