Fort St. John priest praises new Pope Leo XIV as leader for ‘AI age’

FORT ST. JOHN, B.C. —A Fort St. John Catholic priest says the new Pope can be a great spiritual leader for workers amid the rise in artificial intelligence (AI).

Father Chris Lynch of the Fort St. John Church of the Resurrection told Energeticcity.ca of his delight over Robert Francis Prevost being chosen and is now Pope Leo XIV.

“I’m just totally absolutely over the moon with Pope Leo XIV, I would say the cardinals chose a good man to lead the Catholic church,” said Lynch. 

Lynch says Leo XIV is a great successor to the late Pope Francis, who he said was in touch with how common people lived, such as taking public transportation to work daily. 

“Some of the popes in the past were university professors, totally removed from the day-to-day life experience of people,” said Lynch. 

“Leo XIV spent direct contact with the poorest of the poor every day in America so that’s great continuity from one pope to the other.”

As the former prior general of the Order of Saint Augustine, the new pope has travelled around the world and will know how to guide it, Lynch said. 

“He’s got his finger on the pulse of where things are at and where things need to go,” Lynch explained.

“He will listen to what’s going on and take his time and whatever changes need to be brought about.”

Lynch says the name was “well chosen,” drawing an ideological parallel to Pope Leo XIII, who led the church during the Second Industrial Revolution and was concerned about the average worker and the dignity of human labour. 

Lynch sees the rise of AI as the start of a new industrial age.

“Being a man of the world, he is looking at what’s going on around him and sees the new industrial revolution in AI and how it will affect human beings,” says Lynch, who has been in Fort St. John for three years.

“We’re in difficult times, I see so much distress among people who are searching and searching and searching and the consumer society is not giving them what they’re after.”