Pope Francis recalled the extermination of millions of Jews in calling Wednesday for the upcoming Holocaust Day of Remembrance to reaffirm that war can never be justified and only benefits weapons makers.
At the end of his weekly general audience, Francis referred to Saturday’s commemoration, which has become fraught this year given Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and a rise in anti-Semitism in Europe and around the world.
Pope Francis delivers his blessing during his weekly general audience in the Pope Paul VI hall at the Vatican, on Wednesday, 24th January, 2024. PICTURE: AP Photo/Andrew Medichini.
“The remembrance and condemnation of that horrific extermination of millions of Jews and of other faiths, which occurred in the first half of the last century, help us all not to forget that the logic of hatred and violence can never be justified, because they deny our very humanity,” Francis said.
Italy’s Jewish community has denounced a rise in anti-Semitic sentiment, including what leaders call the improper use of terms like “genocide”, following the 7th October Hamas attacks in southern Israel and Israel’s military response in Gaza.
On Tuesday, the head of the Jewish community Naomi Di Segni announced that marathons around Italy that have traditionally marked past Holocaust Remembrance Days had been cancelled this year because of security concerns.
She also complained about unnamed Catholic leaders who had “minimised the recognition of what happened on 7th October as a terrorist act compared to the right of Israel to defend itself”. She didn’t name names, but some Jewish leaders have complained about Francis’ initial comments, in which he didn’t identify Hamas by name and complained generally that “we’ve gone beyond war…this is terrorism.”
Francis has subsequently always referred to suffering in both Israel and Gaza, and specifically condemned the 7th October attack.
Francis said this year’s commemoration falls amid not only the war in Gaza but also in “tormented Ukraine” and called for prayers for the victims and for political leaders to “cherish human life by putting an end to wars.”
“Let us not forget: War is always a defeat, always,” he said. “The only ‘winner’ is the arms manufacturers.”
Meanwhile, the Pope on Wednesday also warned against the “perverse” dangers of artificial intelligence, renewing a call for its worldwide regulation to harness it for the common good.
Francis, who acknowledged that he was the victim of a deepfake photo, spoke of his fears and hopes for artificial intelligence in his message for the Roman Catholic Church’s World Day of Social Communications, which will be marked around the world on 12th May.
While he urged people to temporarily “set aside catastrophic predictions and their numbing effects” about new things, his three-page message was mostly dire, warning of “cognitive pollution” that can distort reality, promote false narratives and imprison people in ideological echo chambers.
“We need but think of the long-standing problem of disinformation in the form of fake news, which today can employ ‘deepfakes’, namely the creation and diffusion of images that appear perfectly plausible but false – I too have been an object of this,” Francis wrote.
Pope Francis is helped in a wheelchair to meet the faithful during his weekly general audience in the Pope Paul VI hall at the Vatican, on Wednesday,24th January, 2024. PICTURE: AP Photo/Andrew Medichini.
He apparently was referring to a fake image of him that went viral on social media last year. It depicted him wear an ankle-length white puffer coat posted by someone who used an image generating program.
Francis also spoke of fake “audio messages that use a person’s voice to say things which that person never said”.
On Monday, the Attorney General in the US state of New Hampshire said his office had opened an investigation into the origins of fake robocalls that simulated President Joe Biden’s voice and encouraged voters not to cast ballots in the presidential primary on Tuesday.
“The technology of simulation behind these programmes can be useful in certain specific fields, but it becomes perverse when it distorts our relationship with others and with reality,” the pope wrote.
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He renewed a call he made last month for a legally binding international treaty to regulate AI.
In Wednesday’s message he spoke of the “associated pathologies” of AI, including a decrease in pluralism and a proliferation of “groupthink,” where consensus positions are taken without considering outside criticism or alternatives.
Francis also spoke of the danger of AI in the media, particularly in the reporting of war, which he said could be subjected to a parallel war waged through disinformation campaigns.
AI must support and not eliminate the role of journalism on the ground, he said.
– With PHILIP PULLELLA, Vatican City
