In his first encyclical letter, Magnifica Humanitas, one of the messages of the Holy Father concerns the importance of prayer during the digital transition. For instance, the Holy Father refers to Saint Benedict of Nursia, who united prayer and work, showing daily activity to be a part of the human response to God’s call. Through the unity between work and prayer, our work can continue to contribute to the progress of society and the common good. The Holy Father reminds us of the consequences of disunity between prayer and work in the era of AI: “Today, the convergence of automation, robotics and AI is rapidly transforming the very structure of work. It is said that this will bring great improvements for everyone. In reality, however, the ‘new ways’ of working are not necessarily better, for ‘while AI promises to boost productivity by taking over mundane tasks, it frequently forces workers to adapt to the speed and demands of machines, rather than machines being designed to support those who work. As a result, contrary to the advertised benefits of AI, current approaches to technology can paradoxically de-skill workers, subject them to automated surveillance and relegate them to rigid and repetitive tasks’” (150).
In Mark’s story of the cleaning of the Temple, Jesus states, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples? But you have made it a den of thieves.’” There have been many different interpretations of this passage. Some biblical scholars believe that Jesus’s temple action was a revolutionary political action, an attack on the holiness of the Temple, an attack on the Jewish sacrificial system. Instead of seeing Jesus as a revolutionary, I think we can understand Jesus’s actions in the context of proper worship. Indeed, Jesus did not allow anyone to carry anything through the Temple, suggesting that his action goes beyond the cleansing. But if we look at the origin of his words, in which he quoted Isaiah 56:7 (“My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations”), it suggests that Jesus wants to see all the nations and people to worship the Lord, not only the chosen people of Israel. The proper way of worship is related to the second quotation (“You have made it a den of thieves”). Jesus wants to remind us that the proper way of worship is always related to the presence of God and justice: people cannot think they worship God properly if at the same time they steal and oppress the poor. Similarly, in the era of AI, one cannot condone technologies that erode workers’ dignity, thinking that our worship at the Church will cover our sin.