The Church does not fear technology; it asks what technology is for. Human work and invention share in God’s own creative activity, and progress in knowledge and tools can serve the dignity and flourishing of the person.

But Catholic teaching insists that technical progress is not automatically human progress. Benedict XVI, in Caritas in Veritate, warned against an absolutizing of technology that treats efficiency as the only measure and forgets the truth about the human person. Technology must be guided by a sound understanding of what man is, and ordered to the common good — not allowed to redefine the person or to discard the vulnerable.

Applied to automation and artificial intelligence, the question the Church asks is not whether a machine works, but whom it serves, and what becomes of the worker. See Laborem Exercens and Caritas in Veritate.