OxTalks is Changing
On 28th November OxTalks will move to the new Halo platform and will become 'Oxford Events' (full details are available on the Staff Gateway).
There will be an OxTalks freeze beginning on Friday 14th November. This means you will need to publish any of your known events to OxTalks by then as there will be no facility to publish or edit events in that fortnight. During the freeze, all events will be migrated to the new Oxford Events site. It will still be possible to view events on OxTalks during this time.
If you have any questions, please contact halo@digital.ox.ac.uk
Artificial Intelligence, New Technologies of Communication, Modern Catholicism
This paper provides an analytical review of the emergent roles of artificial intelligence, new technologies of communication in modern (twentieth and twenty-first century) Catholicism through the prisms of people, place, pilgrimage and prayer. This collaborative paper charts a critical cross-disciplinary cartography of the Vatican’s pioneering involvement with new scientific and technological media of the modern age as means for enhancing its ancient and today still unchanged mission of evangelization, conversion, paths to holiness and sanctification. Focused attention is here placed upon the journeying of people (the faithful) to holy sites (physical places) of devotion, a physical manifestation of a spiritual, prayerful quest defined as pilgrimage. Exemplars highlighted here are the Marian pilgrimage sites of Lourdes (1858), Knock (1879) and Fatima (1917).
The paper is divided into two parts. The first charts how the modern Catholic Church across seven papacies has explored ethically informed and theologically guided means of using new technologies of communication for advancing an ancient catechetical mission towards conversion of life. The second narrates the origin stories and global impacts of the three selected Marian pilgrimage sites.
If in the first the Vatican has embraced modern-day technological innovation, then, it does so we argue with distinctive ethical and theological interpretations of the fundamentals of what is most important for the faithful in terms of communication – of overriding significance here is the message of salvation. In the second, it is decidedly human, embodied, physical and spiritual, pathways to sanctification which define pilgrimage and prayer for the faithful. Conjoined – the message of salvation and pathways to sanctification – in the seemingly simple journeying of people (the faithful) to holy sites (physical places) of pilgrimage and prayer we have here an existential, ontological, metaphysical set of as yet to fully explored ways of thinking about what it means to be human, mind, body, soul, and not a machine.
Date:
2 December 2025, 17:00
Venue:
15 Norham Gardens, 15 Norham Gardens OX2 6PY
Venue Details:
Online
Speakers:
Dr Liam Gearon (University of Oxford),
Joanne Ferguson (Immaculate College, Ireland)
Organising department:
Department of Education
Organiser:
Dr Liam Gearon (University of Oxford)
Part of:
Philosophy, Religion and Education Seminars
Booking required?:
Not required
Audience:
Public
Editors:
Hannah Freeman,
Shaena Sinclair
