Pope Leo on AI: Safeguarding Humanity Amid Technological Transformation
Photo courtesy of Anna Rowlands
A Panel Discussion with Boston College Faculty
Christina McRorie, Clough School of Theology and Ministry
Sam Ransbotham, Carroll School of Management
Brian K. Smith, Lynch School of Education and Human Development
Andrea Vicini, S.J., Theology Department
Moderated by: David T. Buckley, Boisi Center Director
Date:聽Tuesday, September 22, 2026
Time:聽4 - 5:30pm
Location:聽Gasson Hall 100
Reception to follow
On May 15, Pope Leo signed Magnifica Humanitas, an encyclical letter 鈥渙n safeguarding the human person in the time of AI.鈥 At the encyclical鈥檚 May 25 launch event, Leo invited Anthropic co-founder Chris Olah to offer remarks, a sign of the Vatican鈥檚 desire for dialogue with those guiding the future of this powerful new technology. How does Magnifica Humanitas update Catholic social thought for our new technological age? And how have leaders in the private sector, government, and education responded to Leo鈥檚 urgent call? Join an interdisciplinary panel of Boston College experts to unpack Leo鈥檚 ground-breaking document, and discuss the place of religion in AI鈥檚 future.聽
Christina McRorie is associate professor of moral theology at the Boston College School of Theology and Ministry. Her research is interdisciplinary, and draws from the Christian tradition, political economy, and economics to consider questions about moral agency and obligation in markets. She currently serves on the board of directors of the Society of Christian Ethics, and on the editorial boards of the Journal of Moral Theology and the Journal of Catholic Social Thought. From 2020 to 2023 she was a Research Fellow in the Collaborative Inquiries in Christian Theological Anthropology project funded through the John Templeton Foundation.
Christina received her doctorate from the University of Virginia in 2016, and before joining Boston College she taught at Creighton University for seven years. She also has experience leading low-income financial empowerment programming, including two years coordinating volunteer tax preparation sites with the Boston EITC Coalition. She is currently at work on a monograph project that uses the theological category of 鈥渢he world鈥 to examine markets as contexts for moral agency.
Sam Ransbotham is the Peter F. Drucker Chair of Management Sciences and Professor of Analytics at Boston College. While everyone seems to talk about artificial intelligence, Ransbotham is curious about what businesses are really doing鈥擧ow are normal businesses using AI now? How will they use AI later? To learn more, he serves as editor for the MIT Sloan Management Review initiative on Artificial Intelligence in Business. Recently, he co-authored a research report, 鈥溾 and co-hosts the 鈥溾 podcast. Since 2015, he has been an editor for MIT SMR鈥檚 Big Ideas initiatives, including and .聽Ransbotham earned a Bachelor鈥檚 degree in Chemical Engineering, an MBA, and a PhD, all from the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Brian K. Smith is the Honorable David S. Nelson Professor and Associate Dean for Research at the Lynch School of Education and Human Development. His research interests include the design of computer-based learning environments, human-computer interaction, design sciences, societal impacts of computation, out-of-school learning, and computer science education. Earlier, he served as Senior Associate Dean of Academic Affairs at Drexel University鈥檚 College of Computing & Informatics and as program director in the Division of Research on Learning at the National Science Foundation (NSF). He is a technical advisor to the Center for Inclusive Computing at Northeastern University, a program fellow with the Spencer Foundation, and chair of the World Usability Day Design Challenge. He also co-chairs the International Conference on Learning and Collaboration Technologies.
A graduate of UCLA in computer science and engineering, Smith earned a Ph.D. in learning sciences from Northwestern University. He began his academic career at the MIT Media Lab, followed by appointments at Pennsylvania State University as associate professor of information sciences and technology and the Rhode Island School of Design as dean of continuing education, where he oversaw the development of art and design programs for youth and adults, and was a co-investigator of RISD鈥檚 鈥淪TEM to STEAM鈥 initiative.
Andrea Vicini, S.J., is Chairperson, Michael P. Walsh Professor of Bioethics, and Professor of Theological Ethics in the Theology Department at Boston College. Medical doctor and pediatrician (University of Bologna), he is an alumnus of Boston College (STL and PhD) and holds a Sacred Theology Doctorate (STD) from the Pontifical Faculty of Theology of Southern Italy (Napoli). He is co-chair of the international network Catholic Theological Ethics in the World Church (CTEWC). His research includes fundamental moral theology, theological bioethics, global health, biotechnologies, and environmental issues. In 2015-2016, he was research fellow at the Center of Theological Inquiry (Princeton, NJ) on the societal implications of astrobiology. With the Artificial Intelligence Research Group for the Centre for Digital Culture of the Dicastery for Culture and Education of the Holy See, he co-authored Encountering Artificial Intelligence: Ethical and Anthropological Investigations (2023) and Reclaiming Human Agency in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (2025). He authored: Genetica umana e bene comune (2008) and co-edited: Intercultural Theological Ethics: Fundaments, Frameworks (2025); Plastic Pollution, Theological Ethics, and the Call of Laudato Si鈥 (2025); The Rising Global Cancer Pandemic: Health, Ethics, and Social Justice (2022); Ethics of Global Public Health: Climate Change, Pollution, and the Health of the Poor (2021); Reimagining the Moral Life: On Lisa Sowle Cahill鈥檚 Contributions to Christian Ethics (2020); Building Bridges in Sarajevo: The Plenary Papers of CTEWC 2018 (2019); Just Sustainability: Technology, Ecology, and Resource Extraction (2015); and The Legacy of Vatican II (2015).
