By Oghogho Odubanjo
Catholic journalists and media professionals must be responsible in the use of Artificial Intelligence, AI for information dissemination.
Also, to avoid the consequences which could stem from fake news, fact-checking mechanisms are essential and non-negotiable.
The President of Union Catholique Africaine de la Presse, UCAP Africa, Charles Ayetan stated this at the African Catholic Conference held recently in Accra, Ghana.
Using the African concept of Ubuntu, the UCAP Africa President encouraged members of the Catholic Church to work in togetherness and also explore how the church can employ trending technologies in form of ethical AI, for the purpose of evangelism and ultimate betterment of Africa
In a message to the conference, the Prefect of the Dicastery of Communications. Bishop Paolo Raffini, noted that disintermediation and social media have radically transformed relations between institutions and people, hence the need for the church not to forget that it has been called to bear witness to the beauty of its own communion.
“We were to read and tell history with the intelligence of the heart, with the wisdom of love, without confusing its means and ends, truths and lies, intuitions and calculations. We should remain human”.
Addressing the participants, the Apostolic Nuncio to Ghana, Archbishop Julien Kaboré, encouraged them to resist every temptation to delegate moral responsibilities to AI.
Archbishop Kabore further outlined the limitations of AI, including the manipulation of truth, the inability to embody emotions, and the tendency to erode values.
He called on media practitioners to ensure that their works remain rooted in the dignity of humanity and the use of AI guided by moral responsibility.
Some dignitaries present at the conference were Catholic Archbishop of Accra, Most Rev. John Bonaventure Kwofie, the second Vice President of the Symposium for the Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM), Rev. Fr. Uchechukwu Obodoechina, Bishop Matthew Gyamfi of the Ghana Catholic Bishops Conference, the president of the Private Newspapers and Online News Publishers Association of Ghana (PRINPAG), Andrew Edwin Arthur, the president of SIGNIS, Father Walter Ihejirika.
The participants in their various submissions, agreed that AI as a human invention should be used for the benefit of humans, therefore editorial policies that would ensure AI tools do not replace human activities and responsibilities must be adopted.
The 2025 conference of UCAP, also known as the African Catholic Union of the Press, which occurs every three years, was organized in collaboration with the Catholic Association of Media Practitioners-Ghana (CAMP-G) between 10th and 17th August, 2025.
Over one hundred journalists from Africa attended the conference with the theme; “Balancing Technological Progress and the Preservation of Human Values in the Age of Artificial Intelligence”.
