Experts see promise in AI as tool for parish flyers, promotions but warn against its misuse
U.S. parishes are increasingly using AI to create promotional flyers for festivals and other events, offering volunteers a quick and easy design tool. Parish volunteer Mim Scholle warns that AI-generated flyers can look generic or unsettling and may contain obvious errors, such as distorted hands. Diocese of Little Rock Chancellor Deacon Matthew Glover says parish and school event flyers are among the common uses of AI he has seen in Arkansas. Pope Leo XIV has urged Catholics to think critically about AI-generated art, emphasizing the difference between human creativity and machine output.
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Catholic parishes are increasingly using AI to produce event flyers and promotions, offering a fast option for busy staff and volunteers. Church and design professionals say it can work when used thoughtfully, but inaccurate or generic images may undermine trust and the human care that parish communications are meant to convey.
Deacon Matthew Glover, chancellor and general counsel for the Diocese of Little Rock, said parish festivals and other gatherings are among the common uses of AI in Arkansas schools and parishes. Connor McLaughlin of Catholic-focused technology company Truthly also sees value in AI for overworked parish employees, including for research and flyer creation.
Parish volunteer Mim Scholle described an AI-generated flyer image in which a woman appeared to have a cluster of hands in her lap. She said some AI posters look busy and generic, and that errors can make them unsettling; she also worries such materials may fall short of the Catholic ideals of truth, beauty and goodness.
McLaughlin offered a contrasting example: an AI flyer for a children’s All Saints’ Day festival depicted saints in the style of Fisher-Price Little People toys, which he considered suited to the event. He cautioned that when people recognize poorly executed AI, they may conclude that the parish did not care enough to promote its event well.
Scholle said making a flyer can be a way to spend time thinking about others. Catholic writer and content creator Alden McRae similarly encouraged parish communicators to try simple design tools such as Canva or to seek out public-domain artwork, arguing that even modest human effort can produce more attractive materials and offer a creative way to serve and evangelize.
McLaughlin said AI can help connect people to Christ when applied carefully, for a specific purpose and with suitable design knowledge. He advised flyer-makers either to use Canva or to learn how to use AI effectively.
The Diocese of Little Rock has issued guidelines encouraging judicious AI use, citing environmental concerns and risks involving copyright and trademarks. The rules prohibit creating or altering images of real people without permission, bar changes to photos of minors or vulnerable adults, and require disclosure when AI is used to create public content.
Glover said disclosure supports truthfulness and trust, since AI-generated images of real people could cause confusion or scandal if viewers mistake them for authentic depictions. Pope Leo XIV has also urged Catholics to distinguish human art from machine-generated output, saying algorithms lack “the spark of humanity.”
Artificial intelligence challenges human creativity and dignity
Artificial intelligence challenges human creativity and dignity because it can produce works that resemble human-made writing and images, sometimes with remarkable speed and skill. But the deeper Catholic concern is not simply whether a machine can make convincing outputs. It is whether people begin to measure creativity, intelligence, or human worth by the kinds of tasks machines can perform. Catholic teaching welcomes technology as a possible good, while insisting that it serve human beings rather than displace their distinctive value and responsibilities.
AI can generate texts and images that appear original, and its results may rival or surpass human work in some respects. That capacity raises questions about truth, responsibility, and how audiences understand what they are seeing or reading. Yet producing a novel-looking result is not by itself the same as human creativity in its full sense. The Church’s account of creativity includes a personal subject: human beings interpret reality, offer viewpoints shaped by their lives, and seek meaning. The supplied note describes creativity and wisdom as depending, for their full realization, on personal subjectivity.
This distinction does not require dismissing AI’s usefulness or claiming that every human work is superior in technical quality. It means distinguishing the product from the full human act of creating. A person may create from memory, grief, love, cultural belonging, or a desire to communicate truth. The note contrasts this human engagement with AI’s operation through data, observing that human experience can open new horizons of understanding that a data-processing device cannot measure up to.
AI can therefore assist a person’s work, but its output should not be confused with the whole human reality behind a work of art, writing, or judgment. Nor does the ability to generate impressive work settle broader questions about meaning, authorship, or responsibility. The note identifies the imitation of human intelligence and creativity as a reason for serious ethical reflection, particularly because AI can produce artifacts that are difficult to distinguish from human compositions.
The most important Catholic response is that a person’s worth is not measured by intelligence, productivity, creativity, or success. Human dignity is inherent, grounded in being created in the image of God; it remains intact even when a person cannot exercise particular abilities. This protects human beings from a functionalist view—the idea that people matter chiefly because of what they can do.
That warning becomes especially relevant when AI performs tasks once treated as proof of human skill. If society begins to rank people by speed, efficiency, or the quality of their outputs, those who cannot compete risk being treated as less valuable. Catholic teaching rejects that conclusion: dignity belongs to the person, not to a level of performance. The Church’s note explicitly cautions that treating human intelligence and AI as too closely equivalent can lead to valuing people according to the work they can perform.
The issue, then, is not whether AI can be useful or even highly capable at particular tasks. It is whether human beings are reduced to task-performing systems. Pope Leo XIV warns that an efficiency-driven culture can tempt people to see themselves as projects to optimize rather than persons called to relationship and communion. That is a challenge to dignity because it makes control, output, and measurable performance seem more important than the person.
The Church does not treat technological development as inherently wrong. Human skill and creativity can be part of humanity’s collaboration with God in perfecting creation. The ethical question is how technology is made and used: whether it serves human flourishing and the common good, or whether people are made to serve its demands.
The note states the governing distinction plainly:
AI should be used only as a tool to complement human intelligence rather than replace its richness.
“Complement” matters here. AI may help people with certain tasks, but its availability does not remove the need for human judgment or responsibility. The note says AI should assist rather than replace human judgment and warns that it must not degrade creativity or reduce workers to mere components in a system. It also stresses respect for workers’ dignity, employment, job security, and just wages.
This has practical implications for workplaces, schools, media, and the arts. Decisions about using AI should consider whether it supports people’s abilities and relationships, or instead pressures them to produce more, removes meaningful human judgment, or obscures who is responsible for an outcome. Because AI can generate material that resembles human work and can make choices not anticipated by its programmers, questions of truth, safety, and accountability require careful human attention.
A society shaped by AI may be tempted to prize only what can be counted, predicted, or optimized. The Church’s response is not to reject technology, but to resist “digital reductionism”: the sidelining of aspects of life that cannot be computed and may therefore be treated as irrelevant. The note calls for cultivating what transcends computation and for renewed appreciation of the human person.
So the central Catholic question is not merely, “Can AI create?” It is also: What do we mean by human creativity, and what kind of society are we forming through our use of these tools? AI can be valuable when it serves human beings and supports their work. But it becomes a threat when its capabilities encourage people to define themselves—and one another—by efficiency, output, or machine-like performance. Human dignity remains more fundamental than any skill, and human creativity is richer than the production of an artifact.