Pope Leo XIV urged reporters to do their part in protecting the “precious gift of free speech” in his first address to the media on Monday – and also called on governments around the world to release journalists they have imprisoned.
The pope called for an improved model of communication that “does not seek consensus at all costs, does not use aggressive words, does not follow the culture of competition, and never separates the search for truth from the love with which we must humbly seek it.”
“The Church must face the challenges posed by the times. In the same way, communication and journalism do not exist outside of time and history. Saint Augustine reminds of this when he said, ‘Let us live well, and the times will be good. We are the times,’” the former Cardinal Robert Prevost told the enormous pool of international journalists who covered his election as pope.
“The way we communicate is of fundamental importance: we must say ‘no’ to the war of words and images, we must reject the paradigm of war,” he said.
“Communication is not only the transmission of information, but it is also the creation of a culture, of human and digital environments that become spaces for dialogue and discussion,” he noted.
“Let us disarm communication of all prejudice and resentment, fanaticism and even hatred, let us free it from aggression,” he said, decrying the “confusion of loveless languages that are often ideological or partisan.”
“Let us disarm words, and we will help disarm the world,” he said, alluding to a message the late Pope Francis delivered earlier this year, and asking journalists to embrace their calling as peacemakers.
The pope told reporters to practice their trade responsibly, especially when it comes to incorporating the phenomenal new power of artificial intelligence (AI), which he described as one of the greatest challenges facing humanity. He explained that AI was on his mind when he chose his papal name, as the previous Pope Leo wrote about the impact of industrialization on society at the turn of the 20th Century.
“In our own day, the church offers everyone the treasury of its social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defense of human dignity, justice and labor,” the new Pope Leo said on Monday.
The late Pope Francis was deeply concerned about the effect AI would have upon human society, particularly its role in propagating “partially or completely false narratives” and creating “new castes based on access to information.”
Pope Leo called on the media to exercise “responsibility and discernment” in using AI to process information, “in order to ensure that it can be used for the good of all, so that it can benefit all of humanity.”
The pontiff also highlighted the plight of journalists who have been imprisoned for their reporting and called for their freedom.
“The Church recognizes in these witnesses – I am thinking of those who report on war even at the cost of their lives – the courage of those who defend dignity, justice and the right of people to be informed,” he said.
“The suffering of these imprisoned journalists challenges the conscience of nations and the international community, calling on all of us to safeguard the precious gift of free speech and of the press,” he said.
According to press freedom groups, the number of reporters imprisoned around the world has hit record highs several times over the past few years. China consistently takes the unlovely crown as the world’s worst jailer of journalists.
“The primary drivers of journalist imprisonment in 2024 – a year that saw more than 100 new jailings – were ongoing authoritarian repression (China, Myanmar, Vietnam, Belarus, Russia), war (Israel, Russia), and political or economic instability (Egypt, Nicaragua, Bangladesh),” the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said in its January 2025 report.
