Navigating Our Brave New World
New technologies are rapidly transforming society. Are these radical changes good or bad for our emotional and spiritual lives?
Humans > Humanity
The society the technocrats want to usher in to help humanity is one that is highly efficient in solving many problems, but will be terrible for actual humans.
Pope Francis’s Declining Health and the Next Conclave
Pope Francis might be nearing the end of his earthly life; what will the next conclave be like?
The “Sputnik Moment” Delusion
For at least a century or more, Westerners have been conditioned to see each new discovery and invention as a point in some grand civilizational competition. Connected to this framing is the simplistic belief in material progress.
Technology Is Not Neutral
The Church has long pointed out the dangers of technology, with even the earliest pages of Scripture noting the connection between technology and the line of Cain.
The Catholic Response to Neuralink
We are not simply minds that happen to have bodies; we are integrated beings. Technologies like Neuralink, which aim to fuse the human brain with AI, could radically alter this conception of the human person.
Will Elon Musk Usher in a Utopia or a Dystopia?
The recent technical advances made by Elon Musk’s companies— from servant robots to catching rockets out of the sky—are amazing feats of engineering. But will they make the world a better or worse place to live? Should Catholics embrace his vision for the future?
The Ever-Present But Anti-Transcendent Screen
Our screen-based culture is flat and temporal, very immanent, very now, in some sense very ephemeral. None of those characteristics is conducive to openness to transcendence.
Cloud Computing: The Perils of Redefining God as a Celestial Microchip
As AI advances ever further with staggering speed, will such developments one day soon allow us to peer directly into the mind of God?
Five Ways to Stop Modernity From Ravaging Your Mind
What practical steps can we take to stop modernity from ravaging our minds via the internet and the reality distortion that comes with it?
Get Out of the Cave and Enter the Real World
If we could sum up the problem with the so-called modern age, it would be that we suffer from a break with reality.
The Age of Artificial Intelligence (Guest: Dr. Eugene Gan)
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is dominating the news, particularly with the release of ChatGPT. But what is AI and should Catholics embrace this technology or be wary of it?
Francis the Luddite
When the late William F. Buckley set out to find a religion editor for National Review, he was careful to choose a Protestant. Though a Catholic himself, Buckley feared that his magazine—by then, already the flaghship of American conservatism—was becoming “too Catholic.” Eventually, he settled on a bombastic Lutheran minister named Richard John Neuhaus. Alas … Read more
Cardinal Sarah’s Guide to the New Counter-Reformation
In 1577, St. John of the Cross was taken prisoner by a group of Carmelites from Toledo who were opposed to the reforms of the Order he was undertaking with St. Teresa of Ávila. For eight or nine months, he was held in a six-by-ten-foot cell. The ceiling was so low that John (not a … Read more
The Internet: Blessing or Curse?
Auxiliary Bishop of Los Angeles Robert Barron recently gave a pair of quite interesting talks at Google and Facebook. Now approaching 30 million views, Bishop Barron’s Word on Fire is the most influential Catholic evangelization ministry online. Bishop Barron is the ideal teacher, and this for two reasons: mastery of his subject and a genuine … Read more
Analog Technology Takes on the Digital Juggernaut
A quickly forgotten film last year painted the portrait of a tech company that ran amok with its ambition to know and share everything. Just as we often learn a lesson through extreme examples of what can happen, The Circle, based on a 2013 novel by Dave Eggers, provided a chilling look at what a … Read more
The Age of the Android: More Machine Than Man
I am not a techy-type and I never thought I would do it, but I did—I took the infernal trouble of customizing my cellular telephone’s ringtone. With tongue in cheek, but not without symbolic intent, I programmed my phone to emit the sound of Darth Vader’s ominous breathing for every incoming call. Though people start … Read more
Overcoming Our Smartphone Addiction
No artifact shapes our daily lives so much as the smartphone. Most of us are ashamed by our dependence on them, but we don’t consider tossing them out—for that seems impossible to do. Nor apparently, do many parents consider withholding them from teenagers, so necessary they seem to the new shape of social life. So … Read more
Sexual Liberation and the Emergence of Transhumanism
Sexual liberation and transhumanism share an anthropology. Both view the human person as an emergent phenomenon, and as something malleable. Both view the self as sovereign, the will as ultimately answerable to nothing other than its own prerogatives. Exploring the intersection between these two movements requires me to give an account of technology. In speaking … Read more