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Your Writing Makes the Pope Happy

Your Writing Makes the Pope Happy

Last updated on: June 25, 2026 at 10:44 am by Fr. Nicholas Sheehy, LC

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Your Writing Makes the Pope Happy 2026-06-25T10:44:35-07:00 Fr. Nicholas Sheehy, LC

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Everything that makes us human attracts Pope Leo’s attention. Writing is one of these things. What is more human than sitting down and curling up with a good book? His first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, was reported as a reaction to artificial intelligence. However, it is really about being human. In an age of computers, iPhones, and artificial intelligence, is there still a place for books and writing? The Pope responds emphatically, “Yes.”

To mark the centennial of the establishment of Libreria Editrice Vaticana, the official publishing house of the Vatican, Pope Leo XIV addressed writers in a celebratory tone. He noted that books and writing are important. What may have seemed obvious and easily accepted even ten years ago now seems to come under fire. Is it still valuable in 2026 to write and publish books?

Writing

Writing helps us think | Courtesy: Pexels.com

Entertainment seems to have moved to screens. With the rise of artificial intelligence, there is even speculation that movies will go out of style. Individuals will sit down, write a prompt, and sit back to watch the entertaining story that Artificial Intelligence cooks up for them. Many writers advocate for simply feeding prompts to artificial intelligence and are happy to pass off what comes out as their own. They did, after all, feed the prompt.

Truth in Writing

Yet, we all feel there is something profoundly inhuman about artificial intelligence. Are we simply relics of a less enlightened age, or are we on to something? Artificial Intelligence processes data rapidly, but does not participate in the human quest for truth. For a chatbot, information is reduced to data, and there is no transcendent search for truth. This is one of the first points that the Pope makes.

Writing, as you know, is an act of truth, of revelation, for it reveals who we are, what we believe and hope for, the world we strive toward and the future of which we dream. In this pursuit of truth, we sense that truth is subtle, revealing itself to us in our inner dialogue with God and in our open and respectful dialogue with our neighbors. Moreover, “truth is not a territory to be defended, but a good to be shared” (Magnifica Humanitas, 25). We are never masters of the truth; if anything, it is the truth that “conquers” us. That is why I hope you will inspire others to be drawn to the truth, because you yourselves are drawn to it (Pope Leo XIV, “To a Group of Writers”, 24 June 2026).

What AI Can’t Do

AI doesn’t dream. “To sleep, perhaps to dream.” This phrase from Shakespeare’s Hamlet is so poignant and resonates in such a powerful way because dreaming is something so deeply ingrained in our human experience. Writing communicates dreams in a way that AI can imitate, but not reproduce.

AI doesn’t seek truth. Truth is a correspondence between the mind and objective reality. It implies cognition and understanding. This goes beyond the capacity of computers.

AI doesn’t have a sense for neighbors. These are all aspects of humanity, and writing expresses this better, nobler side of who we are. Perhaps, now more than ever, we need to assert the importance of original writing by real writers. Authors have a voice that needs to be heard in this world that is made noisier and noisier by the rise of language models.

Humanity

If writing is rooted in truth, it is rooted as well in humanity. Pope Leo exhorts the writers to write as an expression of their humanity. He recalls the ancient writer Terence.

I am a human being, and I do not regard anything human as alien to me (The Self-Tormentor, I, 1, 25).

What happens inside computers and as a result of language models is alien, foreign to us. The World Wide Web claims to be a network that brings us closer together. It certainly has the capacity to foster friendships and relationships that would otherwise be impossible or difficult. Yet, it can also isolate. Writing builds connections by allowing us to plug into other people’s thoughts in a real way.

Extolling the value of literature, he shared with them:

When you write stories and develop your characters, you identify with them; you grasp their points of view, their emotions, their feelings, their attitudes. This is the great training ground of humanity that you allow your readers to experience, because, in a sense, readers “live” many lives in addition to their own. This helps us to discover different perspectives, to avoid treating our own views as absolute and to piece together, as in a mosaic, the outline of that truth which always transcends us (Pope Leo XIV, “To a Group of Writers”, 24 June 2026).

We who have enjoyed literature recognize the power of the story. Our lives are stories, and sometimes we benefit from an author who, by telling a story of someone else, helps us to go deeper into our own story.

Writing Leads to God

Writing also leads us to God.

Several theologians have reflected on and written about the harmony between the art of writing and the revelation of the biblical God. It is the very structure of Revelation that gives us the authority to do so (Pope Leo XIV, “To a Group of Writers”, 24 June 2026).

Writing helps us to clarify our own thoughts and to pursue the truth. At least, that’s why I enjoy it so much. We live in a world that risks drowning in data to the detriment of seeking and discerning what is true. When we lose the connection to truth, we also lose the connection to the transcendent, and ultimately to God.

Truth, humanity, and God are all found through writing.

We need your imagination, your narrative creativity and your lively thinking. We need these to create spaces of freedom and authenticity, within which divine grace can make the promise of consolation and peace resound. I thank you for every time you have sown seeds of reconciliation, of encounter and of friendship (Pope Leo XIV, “To a Group of Writers”, 24 June 2026).

Writing matters because human beings matter. Pope Leo XIV is calling on you to write. Will you answer the call?

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About Fr. Nicholas Sheehy, LC

Fr. Nicholas Sheehy is Assistant Chaplain at the Duke Catholic Center. He was ordained a Catholic priest in 2013 for the Legionaries of Christ. You can read more about the author here.

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