The ordination of the AI priest

We used ChatGPT to name my mom and dad’s new puppy. They’d adopted a second dog, a friend for their new dachshund, and we wanted a name that matched “Olive.” To OpenAI we went, and in a matter of minutes, we had settled on “Pepper.”

Pepper and Olive are now the names yelled across the house most in my mom and dad’s empty nest. Thanks, ChatGPT.

It was a useful little tool, essentially a rebirth of the Ask Jeeves of the early internet days, except instead of an animatronic butler serving up websites, this was like texting with a very formal friend.

The next day, purely out of curiosity, I hopped onto ChatGPT and said: “Tell me about the Eucharist”.

This was the answer I was given: 

Not too shabby, I thought to myself. If I was just a generally curious individual looking for the very basic facts and simplistic intro concerning the Eucharist, those three short paragraphs were as good a starting place as anything else.

And that’s what I considered it to be: a starting place. ChatGPT was just a tool, like a chatting search engine serving up the very same answers I could’ve found had I clicked on actual webpages, feeding me the information in a digestible, simple format.

I don’t think that, in and of itself as a technology, is all that bad. I’ve gone to YouTube to watch a video on how to fix my refrigerator’s ice maker. I’ve read articles explaining complex geopolitical conflicts, so I can have the basic facts. I’ve asked my friends to give me the rundown on a thing they care about and on which they’re more informed. My husband asked ChatGPT to give him practice questions for his principal’s certification exam so he could study.

Can AI software, in the form of a chatbot or animated character, exist on that same plane – a place where information can be gleaned, basic learning can occur? I think so.

But then, Catholic Twitter rose up against that AI chatbot technology en masse this week, as Catholic Answers, an apologetic apostolate that has cornered the market on easily digestible answers concerning apologetical and theological questions, introduced their latest creation: Fr. Justin.

Named for St. Justin Martyr, the early Church father who is considered the patron saint of apologetics, this 3D AI Character (that looks strangely like an older ‘Prince Charming’ from the Shrek movies, in a cleric’s collar), engages with users in a back and forth to answer questions on Catholic matters in an engaging way. A win-win, right? Don’t just type the question in the search bar and read an old Jimmy Akin or Trent Horn article! Chat with the 3D AI priest who will answer your questions in a back-and-forth, as if y’all are old pals just catching up after Sunday Mass.

Catholic Answers was quick to make something very clear in their initial announcement of their new technology: the parish priest character was on purpose. Priests are recognizable, clearly Catholic, and so this is without a doubt a Catholic creation and resource. Who else but Catholics would create a 3D AI priest, after all? This honors real priests, Catholic Answers said. 

“Father AI” seems to be an amalgam of all the really good, readily available, just waiting for people to ask them questions at any time “Father for Real” at your parish, right?! Right?! Go to fake Fr. Justin, you don’t even have to bother with “too busy Fr. John” or “had three funerals in a week Fr. Joe” or “stresses about his homily for days Fr. Tom.” No no, just go hop on Catholic Answers latest app, ask the AI priest to help you understand the order of the sacraments or the reality of transubstantiation or why your annulment was denied. He’ll be there, day or night, on call, ready to engage WITH YOU!

Catholic Twitter pounced, as they’re wanton to do. Within a matter of hours, hundreds of quote tweets and responses were posted, most of which quickly declared this was something no one was looking for, much less asking for, a solution to a problem that didn’t seem to exist. Was the search feature on Catholic Answers not enough? Was anyone really thinking: You know what would make this apologetical website better? An animated robot with encyclopedic knowledge of Church teaching, but no heart, soul, or even brain.

Apologetics, in and of itself, is interesting not just because it’s factual information. It’s interesting, and even life changing, when it is presented in a pastoral way. I realize those two words often don’t go hand in hand. Apologetics sits on one side of an ideological aisle, pastoral approaches on the other. But it is, in fact, when the “stuff” of the faith is taught in a human, loving, gentle way that the “stuff” (however hard) becomes easier to understand, and ultimately, something one wants to believe.

Could Fake Fr. Justin perhaps be a starting point for people to ask that initial question, get the basic info, and then prompt someone to go seek out the real Father, beleaguered and busy as he may be? Yes, I don’t doubt that could absolutely happen. Could Fake Fr. Justin be a source of aid in a theology classroom, students using the AI technology to dig into a topic, do some research, perhaps engage with one another? Maybe. I think I would’ve welcomed that technology when I was in the classroom a decade ago.

But even if it proves useful, and even if Catholic Answers was quick to clarify that this could never ever be a substitute for real advice from a real priest, and is just one of many tools they’ve offered to curious Catholics hoping to understand apologetics, I still question the need for its existence.

In a world increasingly “online” and seemingly untethered from reality, where phones are never off and screens capture our eyes seemingly everywhere, could the Church, and her wealth of teachings, be the place where we still study, and learn, and come to understand things, in the old fashioned way?

This is not a plea for nothing to be online, or a command to kill the technology. Technology helps, I think, far more than it hurts. But technology still remains that: tech. It is “other.” The phone, no matter how addicting, is still just a glowing screen. It may suck me in and draw my attention to the screen, but it is clearly, no doubt about it, not a person. It is an object. A thing. The video, on the television, with recorded faces and voices, is a capturing of human beings that are saying something meaningful, but with whom I cannot converse back. They’re recorded. I am consuming the recording. It hopefully then leads me to engage with someone in real time, beyond the recording.

An AI Father, that talks back, responds in a robotic, but eventually perhaps more human way, is a blurring of the lines between the technology that is meant to be other and external. In some ways, it’s an attempt to humanize the technology. To take the tech and make it familiar. To package the answers in what seems to be an engaging way, but in the end, is tricking us into not going further or inquiring more. Fake Father answered it. I’m good with that. 

To Catholic Answers credit, they’re trying to make apologetics appealing. An AI Character dressed like a priest and answering questions in a technically correct way is sure to help people want to learn the faith, right? 

Well, perhaps we should realize that apologetics, when pastorally taught by humans to humans in human relationships, is appealing enough, no bearded robot priest needed. 

Katie Prejean McGrady is an author, speaker, and host of The Katie McGrady Show on Sirius XM’s The Catholic Channel and a regular contributor to La Croix International. She lives, works, and writes from Lake Charles, Louisiana.