Let’s start today’s blog post with a simple question:
When was the last time the pope made you stop and think about your lesson plans?
Same.
But something pretty remarkable happened recently in Rome — and it’s worth your attention, even if you’ve never taught in a Catholic school a day in your life.
Last week, a little-known Augustinian friar from Chicago by the name of Robert Prevost shocked the world when he was named the 267th pope. And just two days after being elected the new leader of the Catholic Church, the newly dubbed Pope Leo XIV met with the College of Cardinals and explained why he chose that particular name.
His reasoning? It had everything to do with the future of society — especially education.
Take a listen:
“I chose to take the name Leo XIV,” said the Holy Father. “There are different reasons for this, but mainly because Pope Leo XIII in his historic Encyclical Rerum Novarum addressed the social question in the context of the first great industrial revolution.”
In his address, the newly-rechristened Leo XIV explicitly singled out artificial intelligence developments as “another industrial revolution,” positioning himself to address this technological shift as his namesake had done more than a century ago.
Fittingly, the newly elected pontiff’s moniker places him squarely in the same theological tradition of Pope Leo XIII, author of the 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum — Latin for “Of New Things.”
That document was written in response to the first major industrial revolution — a moment of enormous technological and economic upheaval that reshaped how the world worked and how people lived.
Fast forward 130+ years, and here we are again.
Except this time, it’s not steam engines and factory lines.
It’s AI.
And this new Pope — the first ever born in the United States, by the way — is sounding the alarm on what he’s calling the next industrial revolution: one powered by artificial intelligence. In his words, “the Church offers to everyone the treasury of her social teaching in response to another industrial revolution… that pose[s] new challenges for the defense of human dignity, justice and labour.”
Now let’s hold up a second so we can take a quick survey of the landscape that lies before us.
Love or hate them, the Catholic Church isn’t exactly known for being first to jump on a tech trend. So when they start waving a red flag on AI? You’ve got to wonder: what do they see coming? And when that proverbial white smoke from the Vatican clears, it probably makes sense to pay attention to where the wind is blowing.
Because this isn’t just about robots or chatbots.
It’s about us. Teachers. Students. Humans.
It’s about making sure our classrooms don’t become just another algorithmic feed.
And it’s about a whole lot more than just AI.
AI is a sneaky (and oddly pernicious) devil that continually offers well-meaning educators around the world the chance to sell the souls of their classrooms in favor of these slick, shiny tech-powered solutions that promise all sorts of next-generation efficiency. But sadly, far too many tools in the edtech space have fallen victim to this temptation, and the solutions that they offer typically do little more than slap a fresh coat of paint on the same tired factory model of education.
Cold. Automated. Predictable.
A quiz disguised as a game. A leaderboard pretending to be engagement. Another round of brightly colored bar trivia. A gussied up 21st century Scantron.
Tap-tap-tap. Button-mash. Move on. No deeper thinking. No human connection. Just digital pacifiers passed off as progress.
It’s not engaging.
It’s degrading — for both the learner and the learning.
That’s where we come in.
At EMC² Learning, we believe education should be meaningful, memorable, and deeply human. We’re not anti-AI. Far from it. We believe it has potential to be an incredible tool. But tools are only as good as the hands that wield them. And what matters most — what always matters most — is the soul of the classroom. The people. The passion. The play.
Our library of over 1,000 fully editable resources helps you create the kind of classroom experiences no chatbot can fake and no shortcut can replicate.
See those smiles in that photo above? You can’t AI your way through a Kapla Block review activity where students are up, laughing, connecting, and genuinely learning from one another.
You can’t ChatGPT your way through a LEGO design challenge.
And you can’t deepfake your way through a mock trial.
This is human-centered teaching that sticks.
This is play with purpose.
So no matter your faith (or lack thereof), when the leader of one of the world’s most tradition-minded institutions steps forward to say we’re entering a new era?
It’s not just a symbolic gesture. It’s a paradigm shift.
A reminder that even the oldest voices can still call us to rise — and to respond — to the new things ahead.
And for teachers from all walks of life, it’s a timely call to have faith — not in the artificial, but in the timeless authenticity that only real teaching, real learning, and real human relationships can provide.
(We’re with you at every step along the way)!
The activities featured in this blog post are just a handful of the 900+ resources available and on their way to arrive shortly in the EMC² Learning library. This entire library is available to all members with an active Engagement Engineer or Engagement Engineer PLUS account, and is included with your annual site membership. We hope you’ll consider joining us as an Engagement Engineer to unlock a full year of site access. For complete details including our exclusive limited time offer for annual site membership, click here.
