Burundi: Formators meet for a seminar on Artificial Intelligence

The Episcopal Commission for Priestly and Religious Vocations, Seminaries, and Novitiates recently held a course for lecturers and formators in seminaries and religious houses of formation on Artificial Intelligence. The seminar was organised with Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, as its inspiration.

Fr Dieudonné Niyibizi - Gitega

As Artificial Intelligence makes its way into all sectors of social life, the Catholic Church in Burundi has chosen not to remain on the sidelines of this transformation but to approach it with openness and vigilance. From this perspective, the Episcopal Commission for Priestly and Religious Vocations, Seminaries, and Novitiates recently convened a one-week seminar at its coordination offices, the National Vocations Centre in Gitega.

Reflections rooted in the Magisterium

During the gathering, formators began by looking at a broad overview of the history of human communication, from Palaeolithic cave engravings to the probabilistic calculations of today’s large language models and humankind’s quest for increasingly effective ways of transmitting knowledge. The quest is therefore not new.

Then, the formators reviewed modern-day technological evolution in light of the Church’s Magisterium, from Conciliar documents to the most recent texts.