{"id":24272,"date":"2026-03-18T21:29:51","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T18:29:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/?p=24272"},"modified":"2026-03-18T21:37:43","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T18:37:43","slug":"amecea-eastern-africa-bishops-urged-to-integrate-digital-mission-into-diocesan-structures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/2026\/03\/18\/amecea-eastern-africa-bishops-urged-to-integrate-digital-mission-into-diocesan-structures\/","title":{"rendered":"AMECEA: Eastern Africa Bishops Urged to Integrate Digital Mission into Diocesan Structures"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sr. Jecinter Antoinette Okoth, FSSA <\/em><\/p>\n

A section of Catholic Bishops from Eastern Africa, during a training programme on Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Episcopal leadership, was urged to move beyond passive awareness of digital tools and to deliberately integrate a digital missionary presence into the diocesan structure.<\/p>\n

Addressing Bishops from the Association of Member Episcopal Conferences in Eastern Africa (AMECEA), at Donum Dei, Roussel House, Nairobi, on Tuesday, March 10, Fr. Andrew Kaufa, the Coordinator for AMECEA\u2019s Social Communication Department, outlined the Catholic Church’s official doctrinal position on AI as contained in the Vatican document Antiqua et Nova<\/a> that was published last year.<\/p>\n

Talking about the document that gives guidelines for the ethical, responsible, and controlled use of AI, Fr. Kaufa told a dozen Bishops that the Church cannot afford to remain on the sidelines of the digital revolution and emphasised that \u201ca digital missionary presence is indispensable for the contemporary Church.\u201d<\/p>\n

He warned that faith encountered exclusively online “risks remaining disembodied and never taking root in sacramental communion,” but stressed that digital mission must be anchored in the uniquely human capacities to discern, love, accompany, and pray.<\/p>\n

Drawing on the recently published report<\/a> on the Mission in the Digital Environment, Fr. Kaufa, a member of the congregation of the Missionaries of the Company of Mary (SMM), also known as the Montfort Missionaries, outlined a framework for how dioceses and Episcopal Conferences in Africa can operationalise a digital missionary presence.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis can be done through formation, accompaniment, and structural integration,\u201d the cleric said, challenging the Bishops to exercise Episcopal leadership in driving this agenda, and acknowledging that AI is already reshaping education, healthcare, communication, workplace decision-making, and human relationships, arenas in which the Church has a direct pastoral stake.<\/p>\n

However advanced AI may become, Fr. Kaufa stressed, it can never replace human intelligence, which is inherently relational and endowed with emotional depth, qualities that no machine can replicate.\"\"<\/p>\n

“AI has limits. Its advanced features give it sophisticated abilities to perform tasks, but not the ability to think,” He shared with the Bishops during his Tuesday presentation and highlighted some specific areas of ethical concern for the Church, including AI’s potential to deepen social inequalities, its misuse for generating misinformation and deepfakes, and the grave moral questions posed by Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems, which can identify and strike targets without direct human intervention.<\/p>\n

On the intersection of AI and faith, Fr. Kaufa referenced Antiqua et Nova<\/em> in warning that AI risks becoming a modern form of idolatry: \u201cAI can speak, or at least gives the illusion of doing so,” he said quoting Pope Leo XIV, who on February this year, stated that giving a true homily means sharing faith, something AI will never be able to do.<\/p>\n

Fr. Kaufa highlighted some recommendations to the Bishops, calling on them to \u201crecognise digital culture as real culture and a new way of being human in today’s world; acknowledge the digital environment as a genuine missionary space, particularly given the influence of online content creators; accompany and support digital missionaries, including priests, religious and laity who are evangelising online; and integrate digital mission into diocesan structures and institutions, including in staffing and pastoral planning.\u201d<\/p>\n

He further urged the Bishops to invest in formation beginning with themselves and their clergy, to champion safeguarding and digital ethics, and to ensure that the digitally excluded, including those marginalised by economic, geographic, disability, or other barriers, are not left behind in the Church’s digital engagement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sr. Jecinter Antoinette Okoth, FSSA A section of Catholic Bishops from Eastern Africa, during a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":24261,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-amecea","category-amecea-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24272"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24272\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24279,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24272\/revisions\/24279"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communications.amecea.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}