For better or worse, preachers have always used “canned” content. There has been a wide variety of “homily hints” resources to draw upon, long before the advent of artificial intelligence. Given that, is there anything new or different in generating a homily with AI – especially if those in the pews don’t know about it?
In all fairness, some preachers make good use of homily hints; they can suggest anecdotes to illustrate a point, and offer helpful context from scripture, history, and church teaching. All homilists find inspiration from others at times, and benefit from drawing on the collective wisdom of the communion of saints.
But if preachers can be helped in these ways, why not just have AI spit out an entire text in a few seconds? After all, can’t AI also tap into the Church’s historical treasury? Hasn’t it ingested every homily ever published online? Couldn’t it make preaching more optimized and efficient, and free up time for more in-person ministry, as some AI proponents insist?
Some might even argue that AI can “write” better homilies than many flesh-and-blood preachers can – and maybe they have a point. There’s some bite to the old joke that Christianity must be true because it’s endured so long, in spite of how it’s preached.
Pope Leo begs to differ. Regarding preaching, he told a gathering of priests, “People want to see your faith, your experience of having known and loved Jesus Christ.” A machine isn’t capable of faith, he explained; only people are. And a person’s faith can’t be shared by simply typing prompts into a chatbot, but only by carrying one’s cross and reflecting on the journey.
AI may promise a more “frictionless” life – easy, seamless, automatic – even in preaching the Word of God. But engaging with God’s Word is never frictionless. As the New Testament’s Letter to the Hebrews describes it, God’s Word is “living and effective, sharper than any two-edged sword.” It cuts to the heart. It’s meant to.
Genesis tells the curious story of Jacob’s wrestling all night with an “angel,” who is later understood to be God. As daybreak approached and the contest ended, Jacob received a blessing. “I have seen God face to face!” he exclaimed. But that blessing came at a cost, as Jacob limped away wounded. There was, one might say, friction.
As with Jacob’s story, a lived faith – shaped by wrestling with God’s word – will inevitably have its share of blessings and wounds. These are precisely the raw materials which make for great preaching that touches hearts and changes lives. Homily hints might assist in shaping it, but nothing substitutes for personal experience and testimony that’s shared from the heart.
Pope Leo told students, “AI cannot ever replace the unique gift that you are to the world.” The same is true for preachers, each of whom has unique gifts and stories to share. They aren’t “passive executors of a predefined pastoral plan,” as Leo said to the group of priests, but “are called to collaborate with God’s work” with their own creativity and spiritual gifts.
Such creativity and collaboration, Leo insisted, cannot be done by “settling for artificial statistical compilations (that) diminish our cognitive, emotional and communication skills.” And because AI generates “statistical compilations,” he added, it can offer only “approximations of the truth, which are sometimes outright delusions.”
Some preachers might say, “I only use AI for research!” That’s fair enough, but it’s also a slippery slope. Many AI tools are designed to be “sticky” and maximize engagement. An AI tool might follow a simple search with an offer to write a first draft, which easily segues into a full text. Maybe that’s why Leo called using AI for homilies a “temptation.”
An experienced homilist once told me that preachers preach primarily to themselves, and if their message happens to touch others, that’s an added bonus. In other words, preparing homilies is primarily an exercise in personal spiritual growth. Doing so with AI would short-circuit the process that shapes preachers into better pastoral ministers.
Shepherds who use AI homilies cheat both their flocks and themselves. Congregations deserve words of wisdom from someone who has grappled with God’s Word and shares the faith journey they’re taking alongside them. They want to hear something personal. And something personal can’t come from a machine. It can only come from a person.
The newest Doctor of the Church, St. John Henry Newman – a famous preacher in his day – would have insisted on this. To Newman, human hearts are touched by “personal influence” – not through the kind of reasoning or deductions which AI might reproduce. “Persons influence us,” he wrote, “voices melt us, looks subdue us, deeds inflame us.”
And, he might have added, “friction shapes us.” Friction certainly shaped Newman and his work as a writer, poet, and preacher. After a lengthy illness in Italy had reduced him to violent tears, a ship carrying him back to England was becalmed by fog for a week. “Lead kindly light,” he prayed. “The night is dark, and I am far from home. Lead thou me on!”
These famous words, a cry from a heart expressing both faith and fear, have long since touched other hearts who find they speak to their own dark nights. How fitting that, after he became a cardinal, Newman adopted as his motto, Cor ad cor loquitur: “Heart speaks unto heart.”
… which is also, perhaps, a fitting motto for today’s preachers as they navigate a technology-rich future. AI might be fast. It might be efficient. But it can neither experience nor express faith or friction. And it certainly can’t speak heart to heart.
Image: John Henry Newman, by Sir John Everett Millais, detail. Public domain.
Scott Hurd is vice president of leadership development at Catholic Charities USA. He is author of five books, including Forgiveness: A Catholic Approach and Around the Table: Retelling the Story of the Eucharist through the Eyes of Jesus' First Followers. Scott's writing has been published in multiple journals and magazines, and has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He earned his theology degree from Oxford University and in 2026 will serve as a social innovation fellow with the University of Notre Dame's Institute for Ethics and the Common Good, focusing on AI ethics.
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