In 1990 the little town I lived in at that time had an old church, 100 years old. During Vatican 2 all the ornate altar and other things were torn out to modernize. They put everything in the basement. That year, 1990, the Parish Priest decided to clean out the basement and put everything out at the road for the garbage men. He said if there was anything anyone wanted, get it before it went in the garbage truck. I went over and scrounged through and found the old votive candle holder. It was wrought iron done back in the day by hand forging. A beautiful cross on the top. I have been dragging it around with us for over 36 years. I just touch it and can feel all the prayers said! I had my husband take the strips of candle holders off, I am going to refinish them and mount to a wooden rack and use it to hold rosaries. The cross is in my little prayer room. It gives me such great comfort.
(Note: The day after each Mass, the homily itself is posted on https://divinemercyplus.org/series/homilies-national-shrine) In today’s homily (fast forward to timestamp 10:20–10:30), Fr. Chris Alar summarizes Pope Leo IV’s encyclical on AI, and then explains AI, with its benefits and dangers. For those who want to use AI when researching or querying about authentic Catholic magisterium, Fr. Chris recommends MagisAI: https://www.magiscenter.com/magisai From the website: “Defend Faith with Clarity, Confidence, and Compassion” Our culture asks hard questions. Young [and old] people deserve answers that are rigorous, accessible, and faithful. MagisAI was created to meet that need by providing credible responses rooted in contemporary science and the teaching of the Catholic Church, drawn directly from the work of Fr. Spitzer. Ask MagisAI about faith, Scripture, morality, and science. Clear, sourced Catholic answers, citations to peer-reviewed work, multiple languages, and reading levels.”
https://x.com/i/status/2059884567109194075 I find it interesting that, if Israel strikes first, NATO would be obligated to defend Turkey under Article 5 of the organization. However, it is clear that Turkey could lose something along the way before entering such a possible war. Everything will depend on Trump’s ability to exert leverage over his “allies within the alliance.”
https://stanthonystongue.substack.com/p/the-problem-with-catholic-ai "What exactly does it mean when a product says it “learns exclusively from Catholic sources”? Does that mean the underlying model itself is trained exclusively on Catholic sources, or does it mean a secular model is retrieving answers from a Catholic database? Does it mean the brain is Catholic, or the library is Catholic, or the librarian is still a secular model trained to cite Catholic books? Those are not the same claim, and Catholics deserve clarity on the difference. Because once a product presents itself as a curated gateway into the Church’s intellectual and spiritual memory, the questions get bigger. Who governs the source library? Who decides what texts are included or excluded? What is the hierarchy of sources: Scripture, the Catechism, councils, papal documents, canon law, the Fathers, the Doctors, approved theologians, commentaries, devotional texts, private revelation, internet Catholic folklore? Who decides when something is authoritative, disputed, outdated, pastoral, speculative, devotional, or simply wrong?" This article raises some good concerns. Worth the read. My favorite line was: "Catholics who can explain everything but tremble at nothing."
It is looking more likely that all this AI speculation is mostly hype, a financial bubble accounting for approximately 50% of US GDP growth, yet another Ponzi scheme into which more and more money is pumped in the hope that ‘this time it’s different’. Without all this investment, apparently US GDP would have fallen by 3% last year, which is recession territory. Another crash incoming is the most likely outcome.
When I learned about Acutis, a Catholic AI developed by faithful Catholics, I used it a few times just to ask about questionable content in movies and books. Just in the 4 or 5 times I used it, it got multiple things wrong....For instance, it assured me there was no taking of God's name in vain in a certain book, when in fact, it turned out there was plenty of that. Needless to say, I'm no longer using it. I went against my better judgment and gave AI a try because it was supposedly a Catholic, trustworthy source. But instead of telling me "I don't know," it gave me outright false information, announced very confidently. And if I hadn't gone through the book myself after buying it, my son would have been reading a lot of profane language.
