Chaminade University of Honolulu

Marianist Lecture

AI Cannot Replace Human Values, Panelists Advise at the 2026 Marianist Lecture

Humanity can cope with the rise of artificial intelligence technology, as it has with other technological revolutions, without losing what makes us human. But we must first fully understand what AI is and how it should be used.

That was the greatest takeaway from this semester’s Marianist Lecture, held this past Sunday at Chaminade University and featuring two experts on AI and the Catholic Church’s position on this technology. The 2026 Marianist Lecture was titled “Timely Technology, Timeless Questions: AI and the Human Person.”

Kyle Ballarta is a venture capitalist and entrepreneur who has written extensively on the intersection of faith and technology. Louis Kim is an executive, technology advisor, and theologian with the Duke Divinity School. Both were this year’s guest lecturers, drawing hundreds to the Mystical Rose Oratory for a Sunday afternoon discussion on AI and human dignity.

Ballarta and Kim had earlier spoken to students and faculty last Friday to discuss AI as part of the University’s Wellness Week enrichment event. Sunday’s Marianist Lecture involved more formal presentations followed by a brief question-and-answer session with audience members.

Back in May, His Holiness Pope Leo XIV released his landmark encyclical letter, Magnifica Humanitas. In it, Pope Leo discusses AI technology at length, rejecting arguments that it represents some new form of consciousness similar to human self-awareness while accepting that AI is a powerful tool that must be managed responsibly.

“We cannot consider AI to be morally neutral,” the Pope’s encyclical states.

Ballarta imparted the same words of wisdom during his Marianist Lecture presentation. “We choose values, and those values choose technologies,” he said.

In other words, how this technology is used depends on the values of the people both building it and applying AI. Ballarta reminded the audience that new technologies have always drawn concern throughout human history–from Gutenberg’s printing press to the telephone–yet humanity has always found a way through these changes, incorporating new groundbreaking technologies into everyday life without losing ourselves.

“This has always been about how machines impact humanity,” Ballarta said.

Kim echoed Ballarta’s reflections, acknowledging the anxiety many are feeling about AI, particularly over its potential impact on jobs and human connections.

“What is precious about being human?” he asked the audience. “When AI gets so powerful, what are we going to hold on to?”

AI technologies, in particular the most popular large language models (LLMs) or chatbots, are based on computer processing architectures that empower computers to recognize and replicate common patterns and relationships between data points. Whereas computers could once only process text word-by-word, modern LLMs can read entire paragraphs and even books and recognize how the words and phrases contained within them relate to one another, enabling these machines to generate their own human-like responses to queries.

As impressive as this technology is, we should not mistake this processing power for actual human thought or consciousness, Ballarta cautioned during his talk, echoing one of the main points delivered in Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical. “We are more than numbers and data,” he said.

Meanwhile, Kim offered words of encouragement to people feeling overwhelmed by the rapid progression of AI technology and its intrusion into our daily lives. He argued that faith very much still has a seat at the table for this broader discussion, and that the Catholic Church in particular has a role to play.

The Church “has the power of cultural change,” Kim reminded everyone.

Ballarta agreed. Catholicism “can be a serious instrument in addressing these questions,” he said.

A powerful tool to be managed

On Sunday, Bishop Michael Thomas Tupou Castori, the sixth and presiding Bishop of the Diocese of Honolulu, returned to the Chaminade campus to hear Ballarta and Kim discuss AI and the Church’s position on its rise.

Questions from the audience reflected both general confusion over what AI technology is and genuine concern about how it may negatively impact society. Audience members reminded Kim and Ballarta that the people in Silicon Valley and beyond developing AI technologies do not necessarily have the best intentions in mind.

Kim said he has encountered both good and bad actors in his interactions with Silicon Valley technology company executives. Yet he acknowledged that this concern is legitimate. He said the only response is thoughtful and appropriate regulation of AI technology.

Ballarta agreed, saying governance will matter a great deal in determining how AI technologies ultimately impact humanity. “Does the technology serve us, or are we serving the technology?” he asked, asserting that AI must, of course, serve humanity and not undermine it.

Other audience members expressed anxiety that, given enough time, generative AI technology will become so powerful that it will be difficult, if not impossible, to know when an image, video, or audio recording is real or not.

On this point, Kim offered optimism, recalling his own experiences allowing AI to generate writing on his behalf; no matter how good it is, he said, the AI cannot quite imitate his voice and writing style, suggesting that people will be able to recognize when something is off in encountering AI-generated content.

Humans are keen enough to recognize when something doesn’t quite fit the world we know.

The next Marianist Lecture will feature Msgr. John Paul Kimes and a local panel on “The Saints of Hawaiʻi” and will take place on Sunday, February 21, 2027, at 4 pm. 

Archbishop Wester Speaks on Nuclear Disarmament

No one wants nuclear war, but many in the U.S. contend nuclear weapons are required for deterrence. In his thought-provoking and timely Marianist Lecture at Mystical Rose Oratory this month, Archbishop John Wester argued that thinking is not only naive but dangerous.

“I believe that deterrence is not the answer. In fact, I believe that deterrence is the enemy. Deterrence is what we should fear the most,” Wester told attendees. “Deterrence does not work and here’s why: Human beings aren’t always rational and we can’t read minds. For nuclear deterrence to work, all stakeholders must be determined to act … predictably.

“But we know that’s not true. That’s not how people work.”

Wester, the archbishop of Santa Fe, has become a staunch proponent and leading voice in the movement for nuclear disarmament. In 2022, he garnered headlines after issuing a pastoral letter entitled, “Living in the Light of Christ’s Peace: A Conversation Toward Nuclear Disarmament.”

In his Chaminade lecture—called “Nuclear Weapons: It’s 89 Seconds to Midnight—Does Anybody Care?”—Wester stressed the importance of talking and of education. He said the conversation on nuclear disarmament is critical but long overdue.

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Wester’s remarks come as the world marks eight decades since the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which killed and injured hundreds of thousands of people and continue to have profound effects on communities. Wester says visiting Japan in 2017, including the sites of the bombings, underscored for him the importance of disarmament to achieve a lasting peace.

In addition to giving the Marianist Lecture on October 12, Wester delivered a similar talk to Chaminade students, faculty and staff earlier in the week. Andrew Peter Ancheta II, director of Student Engagement at Chaminade, said after Wester’s address at the Mystical Rose Oratory that he was buoyed by the message of hope. “Hope can be a very contagious thing should we allow it to be,” Ancheta said. “It’s important for us to not let this conversation die in this beautiful oratory.”

The Marianist Lecture series, which is sponsored by the Marianist Center of Hawai‘i, Chaminade University and Saint Louis School, is aimed at fostering inclusive dialogue on Catholic thought and responsibility. Marianist Lecture presenters, including Wester, are honored with the Mackey Award for Catholic Thought—named after the first president of Chaminade University.

In his talk, Wester outlined the chilling but real potential fallout if a nuclear war were to happen. In addition to the millions killed and injured in the blasts and billions more who would die because of the nuclear winter, Wester noted that nuclear war promises an end to modern life as we know it.

“It would mean an end to just about every book ever written, every medical advance made, every technological development, every philosophical or theological insight gained, every transportation mode we now take for granted. No communication, no hospitals, no first responders, no schools, no libraries, nothing,” he said. “I’m not doing this to create fear but to invite all of us to an enlightened self-interest and to be the change that we want to see in our world.”

Wester closed out his lecture with recommendations for further study and continuing the conversation. The title of his talk, “80 Second to Midnight,” refers to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ “Doomsday Clock,” aimed at spotlighting the existential threats facing humanity.

Wester also challenged attendees to bring more than logic to the conversation of nuclear disarmament. Heart, he said, is also required.. “We need a sense of morality, a sense of how we live with one another,” he said. “We need to do everything we can to end nuclear weapons.”

Marianist Lecture: On ‘Learning From Grief’

Fr. James Keenan, S.J., a nationally-recognized theological ethicist, spoke on the transformative power of learning from grief at the latest Marianist Lecture this month.

Keenan urged attendees to see grief not as something to “get over,” but as part of a complex and personal process of “moving forward.” “I think grief is a form of love,” he said, speaking February 9 in the Mystical Rose Oratory.

“Those who know grief … experience terrible pain and that experience is what liberates them to be responsive.”

He added, “Mourning is not something that can be finished.”

Keenan serves as the director of the Jesuit Institute and vice provost of Global Engagement at Boston College. He also founded Catholic Theological Ethics in the World Church, an international network of ethicists, and has published several books on ethics.

The Marianist Lecture, sponsored by the Marianist Center of Hawai‘i, Chaminade University and Saint Louis School, is aimed at fostering inclusive dialogue on Catholic thought and responsibility. Marianist Lecture presenters are honored with the Mackey Award for Catholic Thought, named after the first president of Chaminade University.

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Dustyn Ragasa, Ph.D., an assistant professor of Religious Studies and director of Chaminade’s Master of Pastoral Theology program, said Keenan served on his dissertation committee. In helping to introduce him at the lecture, Ragasa said he can attest to Keenan’s “generosity, wisdom, compassion and empowering insight.”

“Over the last 40 years, Dr. James Keenan, Jesuit and ethicist, has been a leading voice of hope, an advocate for the marginalized, and a prophetic voice for the call to mercy,” Ragasa said. “Father Keenan has influenced generations of ethicists around the world.”

Keenan’s talk was titled “Learning from Grief: Epiphany in the Upper Room,” and he encouraged attendees to eschew the standard “get over it” model of grief and consider Jesus’ teachings on personal growth and love.

Under that new model, he said, “grief is shared. In light of grief, one needs not to find the way back but the way forward.”

To watch Keenan’s full lecture on Facebook, click here.

Scholar: Catholic Bioethics Must Evolve

Dr. Therese Lysaught is an influential voice in Catholic healthcare

Dr. Therese Lysaught, professor at the Neiswanger Institute for Bioethics and Health Care Leadership at Loyola University Chicago, argues Catholic bioethics must embrace the fullness of the Catholic social tradition and pay more attention to ethical dimensions of healing that are relevant to people’s lives.

Addressing attendees at the latest Marianist Lecture, which was held Oct. 13 at the Mystical Rose Oratory, Lysaught also said a broadened Catholic bioethics has the ability to play a critical role in society.

In an introduction before the lecture, Chaminade’s Dr. Dustyn Ragasa applauded Lysaught’s encyclopedic knowledge of Catholic bioethics and the healthcare system while also praising her for a “big heart and unwavering compassion and commitment” to help patients.

Dr. Dustyn Ragasa praised Dr. Therese Lysault for her unwavering commitment to help the poor and ill.
Dr. Dustyn Ragasa praised Dr. Therese Lysault for her unwavering commitment to help the poor and ill.

“In her work, she holds theology, medicine, ethics and bioethics in profound dialogue,” said Ragasa, director of the Pastoral Theology master’s degree program.

“She’s addressed such issues as the anointing of the sick, gene therapy, genetics, human embryonic cell research, end of life, neuroscience, global health, bioethics and social justice.”

In her lecture, titled “Catholic Bioethics: Catholic Social Tradition and Human Flourishing,” Lysaught detailed three different healthcare scenarios: One involved a Guatemalan man with kidney failure, the second was an elderly Black suffering from end-stage congestive heart failure, and the third involved an 8-year-old gunshot victim.

“Open up any textbook or journal on Catholic bioethics and you will find no mention of such scenarios or of a myriad of similar issues,” Lysault said. “They don’t count as topics for Catholic bioethical analysis.”

Yet they need to be, she said.

Lysault added Catholic bioethics must incorporate a broader analysis of poverty, race and ethnicity.

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She also argued that the Catholic social tradition could help expand and re-orient Catholic bioethics around a foundation of caring for the sick and approaching the moral dimensions of health and medicine.

Lysault asserted the COVID pandemic exposed many bioethical questions like: How should few effective treatments, such as ventilators, be allocated to patients? How should scarce protective equipment be allocated among frontline healthcare workers? Could patients’ advance directives be overridden?

Dr. Therese Lysault was presented with a lei after Dr. Dustyn Ragasa introduced her to the audience.
Dr. Therese Lysault was presented with a lei from Emmalee Bugado after Dr. Dustyn Ragasa introduced her to attendees.

According to Lysault, there was nothing in the literature of Catholic bioethics to address these questions.

And four years later, she added, while secular bioethics has begun to attend to these questions, you’ll still find almost nothing in the Catholic bioethics literature about these issues.

Tackling questions such as these “will require the theoretical and practical tools of social analysis in the Catholic social tradition,” she concluded.

In her address, Lysaught also touched on a 2022 study in which researchers interviewed 10 kupuna from rural Hawaii communities about their experiences with healthcare barriers. When asked what advice they had for providers about how to improve healthcare for Native Hawaiians, the elders did not list the standard bioethical principles or any of the principles of Catholic bioethics, Lysault said.

“Rather, they appreciated providers who, to quote, ‘took the time to talk story and to get to know them as people and community members,’” Lysault said.

“They appreciated providers who shared information about themselves.”

At the end of her lecture, Lysault was presented with the Mackey Award for Catholic Thought, which honors scholarly, community and faith leaders whose body of work advances the spirit and educational mission of the Society of Mary and the Marianist Family.

Presenting her with an ‘umeke, Chaminade Student Engagement Coordinator Andrew Ancheta told Lysault the significance of the koa bowl in Hawaiian culture and remarked, “Today, you filled it with spiritual and intellectual food.”

God’s Mechanics

There was time for one more question before the close of the Marianist Lecture. Chaminade student Noelani Tugaoen stood up and politely asked, “How are we able to foster the dialogue of faith and science with those who are younger and don’t have any experience with the religious world?” 

Lecturer Bro. Guy Consolmagno, S. J. half-smiled before laughing and saying, “Boy, I wish I knew the answer to that.”  The audience then joined him in light laughter. 

As the Director of the Vatican Observatory and President of the Vatican Observatory Foundation, Consolmagno clearly knows the answers to most any question that comes his way.  A native of Detroit, Michigan, he earned undergraduate and masters’ degrees from MIT, and a Ph. D. in Planetary Science from the University of Arizona; he was a postdoctoral research fellow at Harvard and MIT, served in the US Peace Corps (Kenya), and taught university physics at Lafayette College before entering the Jesuits in 1989. 

Yet on October 8th in the Mystical Rose Oratory as part of the Marianist  Lecture Series, he humbly replied that he didn’t know the answer to Tugaoen’s question.

His lecture, “God’s Mechanics: How Scientists and Engineers Make Sense of Religion,” however, was packed with answers to lofty questions about science, astronomy, commonalities and differences between different religions, and – ultimately – what “believing in God gets you.” He also delved into ways that “techies” deal with why so many religions exist in our world today. 

He opened his talk by playing a video from the Vatican Observatory, and then he dove head first into how scientists and engineers make sense of religion. His full talk can be viewed here. 

At the Vatican Observatory since 1993, Consolmagno’s research has explored connections between meteorites, asteroids, and the evolution of small solar system bodies, observing Kuiper Belt objects with the Vatican’s 1.8 meter telescope in Arizona, and applying his measure of meteorite physical properties to understanding asteroid origins and structure. 

Consolmagno also spoke with Chaminade Scholars on October 6 during lunch. The conversation was lively and insightful with much mutual respect between Consolmagno and the students. At the end of the presentation, Consolmagno was presented with the Mackey Award for Catholic Thought, given to a speaker per year. This award is given to those who help continue the Marianist charism and make a difference in the community.

The Marianist Lecture series is sponsored by Chaminade University, Marianist Center of Hawaii and St. Louis School with the next installment of the series on February 18, 2024 featuring Dr. Steve Neiheisel who will focus on Catholics in the public square during an election year.   

Leading Scholar of Religion Discusses Disaffiliation

One of the most urgent issues in social science research and among catholic institutions stems from the fact that people are leaving the church and disaffiliating from religion. It’s a serious concern that Fr. James Heft, S.M., discussed during a Marianist lecture at the Mystical Rose Oratory.

Fr. Jim Heft, SM

Themed, “Where Have All Young People Gone?,” Fr. Heft outlined complex solutions to a complicated question. Addressing the crowd, he shared his anecdotal stories, one of which occurred during a wedding rehearsal dinner.

“I asked a young woman named Monica about her religion, to which she answered, ‘Religion was forced down my throat,’” Fr. Heft recounts. “Whoa! I told her now that you can feed yourself, what do you think? It started five years of correspondence.”

Such candid conversations need to start happening across that nation if we want to find the reasons for disaffiliation. 

A 2018 study by the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies (IACS) at the University of Southern California found that the Catholic population has been declining in the U.S., and Catholicism has experienced a greater net loss of people than any other religious tradition. The study also found that the majority of millennials raised Catholic typically now report that they are unaffiliated and there has been a significant drop in weekly Sunday attendance.

In a more recent Pew Research Study released in December 2021, those surveyed said they no longer go to church, but they still believe in God and pray. The report also revealed that those in the 18-29 age range represented the fastest decline in religious affiliation, with 36 percent rejecting any type of affiliation with a religious denomination. 

“Our interdisciplinary study, ‘Empty Chairs,’ published in 2021 by Oxford University Press, offers a more detailed—I think informative—and contextualized description of disaffiliation than the Pew study, which has its limitations,” Heft asserts. “The Pew provides a good overview of a specific demographic, mainly white, affluent and well educated.”

In contrast, Heft described the sample group for “Empty Chairs” as more inclusive and representative of a more diverse cohort among the unaffiliated. The study included immigrants whose approach to religion is different than white young adults. College non-graduates, high-school graduates, non-affiliated theists, the economically disenfranchised and an older generation—that had not affiliated with any religion for decades—also participated. 

Fr. Jim Heft, SM, speaking to students

“The study, however, provided some good news,” Heft said. “We document how religious parents provide warmth, appropriate religious structures and space for appropriate autonomy.”

The research also documents how fostering religious religious development in youth protects against delinquency, violence, depression and anxiety. In short, the healthy practice of religion cultivates psychological and physical well being, as well as civic involvement.

“Religious education and institutions continue to make a positive impact,” Heft asserted. “The question is: Is it secularization, the general movement in the culture, that has marginalized and privatized religion, and contributed profoundly to the situation we’re in?”

Heft admitted that disaffiliation is serious and alarming, but we shouldn’t become discouraged; there is hope. As the late religious scholar Huston Smith liked to say, “Religion gives traction to spirituality.”

“There are a lot of people suffering and hurting, and there’s nothing like an easy answer to make them more distant from faith,” Heft said. “We need to be careful in wanting to promote the faith in a deep way but not to promote it superficially. Afterall, Jesus said, ‘My God, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’”

Watch the full Marianist Lecture featuring Fr. Jim Heft, S.M, here.