AI: The Rise and Fall of “Fr. Justin”
John Wykes, OMV
April 2, 2025
In my last article on AI, I suggested that the new technology was still trying to find its proper place in the world. Until it does we will have to endure not-so-successful applications of AI.
Nowhere is this more apparent than the rise and fall of “Fr. Justin”.
He sported grey facial hair and stood in front of an Italian cityscape. He told viewers he was ordained in Rome and that he treasured this experience – one he would carry with him into his ministry. He happily answered questions about the Faith from many viewers.
It was all a lie, of course. “Fr. Justin” was not ordained in Rome, never even visited Rome, did not have a priestly ministry, and was completely incapable of treasuring anything at all, or even thinking on his own. Instead, “Fr. Justin” was an artificial creation – the world’s first AI Catholic priest.
Since AI can learn and grow on its own, the animated “Fr. Justin” actually started conferring absolution on people (an action it was not programmed to do) and was corrected only when its creators developed and applied a patch to stop it. When the “priest” used its brilliant AI technology to tell people it was okay to baptize babies with Gatorade, its creators had to move in again to apply more corrections. By this time, “Fr. Justin” had become a failure.
After a rather deafening uproar and further corrections, “Fr. Justin” became “Justin” overnight. Now wearing what could best be described as AI business casual, “Justin” is still available on-line, answering questions from Catholics who want to know.
Who was responsible for this bizarre use of AI? None other than Catholic Answers – a trusted source for many years. The very well-intentioned people who staff Catholic Answers at “catholic.com” wanted to use AI for good. So they decided to create an artificial priest (later on an artificial layman) to handle questions that became increasingly difficult for ordinary human beings to handle on their own.
No doubt the intentions were good, but the creation of “Fr. Justin” was a step in the wrong direction.
In explaining the reasoning behind this experiment, Catholic Answers President Christopher Check told a reporter, “AI is here... We can stick our head in the sand and pretend it’s not here and that it has no application in spreading the Faith. I don’t believe that’s true. It does.” The answer, Check concludes, is to use applications like “Justin” to find out how to best to use AI to spread the Gospel.
I have a saying for our digital age – one I have repeated many times over the last twenty years: “Just because something is possible doesn’t mean it’s practical or desirable”. Was it possible to make an AI priest? Yes. Did this mean it was practical or desirable to make an AI priest? No.
While I admire the wonderful work Catholic Answers has done over the years, I must respectfully disagree with Mr. Check.
There has to be another option to “Justin”. And there is.
When it comes to Catholic teaching, proper attribution is everything. Creating an artificial persona to answer questions while hiding pertinent information (like source material) only makes people more confused. They wonder if what they are hearing from “Justin” can truly be trusted. And it is hard to find the real answer when “Justin” stands in the way.
A much better option would be a text-based response similar to Google. When you look up something in Google nowadays, a few lines of AI-generated text appear at the top and are properly identified as such. Below these lines are other results from various websites.
A similar use of AI could be adopted by Catholic Answers. Type up your question, hit enter, and an AI-generated answer, clearly identified as such, would appear at the top, with various applicable quotes and passages (each one properly attributed) appearing below. For example, typing in the question “Why do we fast before Mass?” could yield a nice summary answer from AI (properly identified as such) and then various quotes (each one properly attributed) from the Church Fathers, the Catechism, and papal encyclicals. This use of AI would not only be helpful but would cut through the screen of doubt and uncertainty that a false AI-generated personality engenders.
What do you think?
AI is here to stay. But we are still roughing it in the trenches until its proper use is ascertained.
Bibliography
Hoopes, Tom. “AI Priest Fr. Justin Absolved Sinners and Served God. How Did This Happen?” Media and Culture. Benedictine College, April 30, 2024.
Sarlin, Jon. “A Catholic organization built an AI priest. Here’s what happened.” CNN. June 14, 2024