A Bonhoeffer Moment: Post #2 Stephen Colbert and Pope Leo XIV
- Jul 13
- 16 min read
Updated: Jul 14
July 12, 2026
Note: The Trump Administration and the reactionary politics throughout much of the country continues to make war on the historic promise of our nation based on the Declaration of Independence, the constitutional system of equal opportunity under the law, the civil war to uphold this vision, and almost a century of political and judicial judgments to institutionalize this vision. The crisis is immediate, demanding a Bonhoeffer-like resolve as I urged in my Post #1.
Yet, we cannot lose sight of another, concern, beyond Trump, about which we need to understand and manage, the future of “artificial intelligence (AI).” Therefore, my Post #2 begins a multiple post effort to engage the topic of AI.
Stephen Colbert and Pope Leo XIV
“I lost my father and brothers, Peter and Paul, when I was 10, and this realization did not come until I’m on the doorstep of middle age, literally walking down the street. I was struck with this realization that I had gratitude for the pain of that grief.”
---Stephen Colbert, Conversation with Anderson Cooper on Grief
“Building for the common good means accepting the limits and weakness of humanity without considering them an error to be corrected. Today, the human desire for fullness of life is at risk of being misled by deceitful goals, such as the prospect of a technology that promises to free us from all weakness, and models of wellbeing that leave behind entire populations.”
---Pope Leo XIV, “Magnifica Humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in a time of Artificial Intelligence”
Entering the Debate About Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Have you, like me, been overwhelmed with the issues surrounding AI? For a long time, I have sought a way to enter the discussion for my own understanding and how to engage family, friends and colleagues on the subject. I have been saving articles on the topic for the last two years, thinking that I would find the answers in the file of over 100 articles.
I offer a personal story that helped me focus on some of the key issues about AI that I felt needed to be highlighted. I hope this story also helps you decide which issues are the key to “safeguarding the human person.”
In late May, Pope Leo XIV announced his Encyclical on AI. I wondered what the Pope could add to the discussion. I became intrigued after a quick reading of “Magnifica Humanitas.” I liked his focus on safeguarding the human person. As a professor of Ethics, I often had my students explore the question of, what does it mean to be human? Thus, I wanted them to consider the larger question of, what is the human condition?
I was intrigued that this was the first time a Pope personally announced his own Encyclical. Additionally, I was impressed, though surprised, that Chis Olah, one of the founders of the AI firm, Anthropic, spoke at the event with the Pope in the College of Cardinals’ auditorium at the Vatican. Olah was adamant that creators of AI needed the assistance of the fields of the humanities, particularly the help of philosophy and religion scholars. He also wanted to expand the discussion to the wider world of civil discourse. He said decisions about the future of AI needed to include more than just computer scientists like him. He wanted the discussion to focus not just on the “implications” of AI but the very “nature” of AI.
The event at the Vatican set the stage for me wanting to explore the Pope’s concern about “safeguarding the human person” and Olah’s challenge to understand the “nature” of AI itself. I realize that the cultural, social, political and educational “implications” are profound, but I was pleased that the Encyclical and Olah’s statements focused on the question of our humanness. I began pondering, what is quintessentially human that we must protect? And would AI creators not only believe that they could create something human-like or better, but what would this new creation be? The way Olah stated his approach to AI creations was helpful. He said it was a “little like bringing a fictional character to life. And now we’re entering an extraordinary world where those fictional characters speak to us, do work, have jobs.” Anthropic’s bot “Claude,” I assumed had been informed by Olah’s concerns. More on this later.
So, my questions became: what kind of “fictional” character might be in the mind of an AI creator? And further, with the Pope, does this creation meet our deepest understanding of the human person, our heroes, the people we love and our own self-understanding?
I was now hooked on these questions, the same one’s I wanted my students to explore. For our concept of humanness will determine how we understand ourselves and our world. I have colleagues working on the controversial topic of “transhumanism.” But my question now was less abstract and more specific. I will address the “post human” issue in the next Post #3. For now, I want to stay with my story as it unfolded, very serendipitously.
First, I want to acknowledge that beside the issue of the “nature” of AI, which I address in this post, it is extremely important to address the implications and consequences of AI, which have in fact been written about daily for the last year. These issues are more than incidental. Remember the rise of the “world wide web” that was supposed to usher in a more democratic future and give us tech companies that promised to “do no harm?” What we in fact have today is the slippery slope resulting from our embracing this new technology without safeguards and an vigilent public control of the process. This lack of control has produced tech companies that now represent a third of our nation’s wealth as represented by their net worth and the private wealth of tech billionaires. The public has very little control over their activities, especially the use of our individual data as a resource for their wealth. The wealth divide has increased, the power of tech giants has increased, and the negative impact on our political system, and our individual lives, has also increased.
Today the new technological advance of AI enters our world. We are on another slippery slope by our fascination with AI tools for research in education, law and medicine. We also have embraced special “bots” for companionship, personal advice, comfort and pleasure. We are again on a path to grant even more wealth and control to a small number of private individuals and companies, unless we act, a Bonhoeffer moment for sure. As essential as the work of addressing the social cost is, I believe we need to keep an eye on and even more significant concern, the future of our “humanity.” By this I mean both our individual understanding of what it means to be a human and how we understand our existence as part of a human community. The two are related. AI has a “nature,” seen by many to have an alternate vision for both the individual and the collective.
I share my story of how I tried to understand the nature of AI and what means for our human future.
Stephen Colbert
A serendipitous moment gave an answer to a concern I have with AI, which motivated me to make a contribution to the debate as a humanities scholar, with an expertise in religious thought and practice and my experience of teaching Ethics.
Days after the announcement of “Magnifica Humanitas,” my wife, Margot, and I were listening to YouTube videos of songs we enjoy from various artists. The songs by singer song writer Sara Bareilles became our focus. Randomly, on the side bar of my laptop, an interview of Bareilles by talk show host for CNN, Anderson Cooper, appeared. Why not check it out? I was less familiar with Bareilles than Margot. We listened to the interview. The focus of the interview was on grief but specifically highlighting a song Bareilles wrote after listening to a conversation between Cooper and Stephen Colbert, also about grief. Bareilles, a very empathetic and sensitive person, had also suffered a great loss of a friend and father. It was a very touching and emotional interview, especially when a recording of the song she wrote was played prompting Cooper to begin weeping.
Intrigued, we decided to watch the Colbert-Cooper interview. Another very open, honest and emotional interview where each of them talked about deaths in their family that defined them for much of their lives. Each probed the details of these deaths, for Colbert a father and two brothers who died in a plane crash and later his mother, and for Cooper his father and mother and a brother who committed suicide.
A segment of the conversation explored how each responded to these deaths and how they continued to “survive” and deal with their profound grief. Colbert in particular, opened up to reveal his deep Catholic faith. Cooper wanted to know more. This led to a quote about which Cooper quizzed Colbert. At this moment each were at the point of no return in revealing much about their inner lives. It is important to go to the transcript to get a sense of the pathos of their sharing:
Cooper:
Well, I think I’m going to start this podcast with something you said to me back in 2019 in our conversation. And you said, “What of God’s punishments is not a gift? And you said if you’re grateful for your life, then you have to be grateful for all of it. How can you be grateful for the death of somebody you’ve loved? Or how can you be grateful for a terrible loss that you’ve experienced?
Colbert:
I have the saddest idea. I just know the value of it. I lost my father and brothers, Peter and Paul, when I was 10, and that realization did not come until I’m on the doorstep of middle age, literally walking down the street. I was struck with this realization that I had a gratitude for the pain of that grief. It doesn’t take the pain away. It doesn’t make the grief less profound. In some ways, it makes it more profound because it allows you to look at it. It allows you to examine your grief in a way that is not like holding a red, hot ember in your hands, but rather seeing that pain as something that can warm you and light your knowledge of what other people might be going through, which is really just another way saying there is a value to having experienced it. Now, how does that become gratitude? That’s the part that shocked me, so I can’t tell you how to get to it. I think that would be really a little Olympian of me to tell people like, you should be grateful. What a great thing that happened to you.
Later in the conversation Cooper talked about his Mother’s death.
Cooper:
…Well, her housekeeper, who you know, informed me after she died that my mom had actually changed her mind and she wanted … one simple thing. So that’s what she got. …I came across a box. I opened it up … and there were a blouse and skirt . And I know from my mom saying, Andy, this is the blouse and skirt I wore when Carter died. So, when my brother killed himself in front of her, this is what she was wearing….I had no idea she had kept that.
Colbert:
I want to say something about living with grief. It occurred to me as we’re telling these stories to each other, I feel like there’s physically a thing in the room with this right now, or at least with me to my right. I don’t know why to my right, but there’s physically a thing over here, and it’s a dangerous thing. It’s like living with a beloved tiger, and it’s that feeling. It’s that grief. There are times when it is….When I say I am grateful for It; I don’t want to say that it is no longer a tiger. It is. And it can really hurt you. It can surprise you. It can pounce on you in moments that you don’t expect, or at least that’s my experience. I can’t speak for everybody, but it’s my tiger. And I wouldn’t want to get rid of the tiger. I have such a relationship with it now. And I just want to be clear that its’s painful and it’s going to live as long as I do, but… there’s some symbiotic relationship between me and this particular pain that I’ve made peace with. So, I don’t regret the existence of it.
The Cooper-Colbert conversation made me realize: If I were an AI programmer, I would not need to invent a “fictional” character who I would want to bring to life, as Olah suggests; I would just try to channel Stephen Colbert. Though Colbert may not be everyone’s example of humanness, I think there is a good argument that he, and Anderson Cooper for that matter, display crucial character traits of our humanity. There are many more poignant examples of their humanity in the interview. See for yourself, both the textual reflection on the initial interview and the actual YouTube video are listed at the end of this post.
I know it is hard to believe that anyone can have and live consistently with Colbert’s philosophy, maybe even Colbert himself. Yet in the last airing of his “The Late Show,” on CBS he did not spend time on his grievance with CBS, who fired him. Most of the show was to give a sense of gratitude for being able to host the show for many years, meeting so many remarkable people. It was not until the final act by Bruce Springstein that a poignant political point was expressed with the song, “Minneapolis.” Colbert was grieving, but he remained true to his philosophy and faith, by focusing on gratitude. For me, he should be an inspiration for any AI programmer, if traits of our humanity were to be created artificially. Of course, the issue of whether this is actually possible remains.
Back to the Olah Challenge
As I mentioned, as a humanities and religion scholar, and an Ethics professor for several decades, Chris Olah gives me a challenge and an opportunity. How do I respond? The Colbert story gives me a clue and my first effort to engage publicly on the topic.
Is there any AI programmer desiring to create a bot, like Anthropic’s “Claude,” to have the human characteristic of gratitude for suffering? Again, would this even be possible? And if possible, which is a big “if,” is it desirable and should we try to accomplish it?
First, is it a desirable trait to hold onto and protect? Some may be skeptical that it is desirable, especially in the Trump orbit where many question such values and humility and empathy. For them these are traits of weakness.
Second, if nonscientists and the society at large are at the table for these discussions, what crucial contributions would and could they/ we make?
Third, if desirable, is it possible to artificially create this type of entity, in any imaginable form and healthy way to serve the common good?
I will attempt to answer questions two and three in my next “A Bonhoeffer Moment, Post #3.”
For the remaining of this post, I will focus on the “desirability” question.
The Pope: Is it Desirable? The Pope meets Colbert
I begin with a few quotes form “Magnifica Humanitas” that reinforce what the Stephen Colbert story tells us about humanness. I will first focus on the Pope’s quotes followed by my reflections. But the simple conclusion of the Encyclical will be: Not only is this trait of gratitude for suffering desirable but it the essence of our humanity that we need to “safeguard.” Should we have, even, if possible, an artificial version of this trait in a bot? This is a more complicated question, especially when the possibility is contested and the use of such a bot would have many ramifications. The Pope’s answer is probably, No! What follows are the key passages of the Encyclical on these points. We can examine them together.
In the subsection of Chapter Three, entitled, “The limit, the heart and the grandeur of the human person,” we see Pope Leo championing the type of human capacity that Colbert exhibits. It is in our “limits” that our true humanity arises.
The Pope:
Our relationship with life seems to be in crisis today. Everything that appears as a “limit” — incapacity, illness, old age, suffering, vulnerability — tends to be seen primarily as a defect to be corrected, rather than as a reality through which our humanity matures and opens itself to relationship. And yet we must remember that humanity flourishes not despite limitations, but often through them.
The Pope is unequivocal. Without limitations, we are less human. Yes, this is the “sad story” to which Colbert alludes. We know limitation to be an existential fact in our own lives. In times of trial, we gain insights and meet our true selves. If we were Buddhists, we know we have to hold joy and suffering together as part of the givenness of the human condition.
The Pope:
The light of faith offers a perspective on reality that helps us recognize what we call the “contingency” of the things of this world. While it is right to strive to alleviate the suffering that marks human life, it is also wise to acknowledge our fundamental finitude, knowing that “religious experience, and in particular Christian faith, propose that we live, without oversimplification, this ambivalence between human greatness and limitation, interpreting it in the light of our original and fundamental relationship with God.”
Yes, of course, we want should try to eliminate suffering as much as possible, but the reality is that we are finite. How do we live with our ambivalence between “human greatness and limitation?” For the Pope and Catholic teachings, the source of this is the theological perspective of a religious faith. Without this being emphasized, the words of the Pope will not be understood. It is not solely a humanistic source; it comes from our relationship to God. Could this same position arise within a non-religious person? Of course. But for Pope Leo and traditional Christian orthodoxy, it comes from our understanding and relationship with God, much as Colbert, with a Catholic upbringing affirms.
The Pope:
It is precisely within our limitations that the following find a place: compassion, as well as a sincere concern for the needs of others; a generosity that can emerge even in the midst of darkness and failure; spiritual experience and the worship of God. We see this at many moments when our limits become tangible: when we face rejection, when we suffer the illness or loss of a loved one, when we encounter our own weakness or failure.
I want to be clear what the Pope believes about the source of our moral goodness. To reiterate, he says, it is when our “limits become tangible, when we face rejection, when we suffer the illness or loss of a loved one, when we encounter our own weakness or failure.” This may sound familiar in our own experience? But here is the good news from the Pope, we gain: “…compassion, as well as a sincere concern for the need of others; a generosity [will] emerge even in the midst of darkness and failure.” For the Pope, even the “worship of God” can be the result of our limitation. More on this important point in my next Post #3. However, we must acknowledge that a theological position can and is the source for many in order to live a compassionate vision of human dignity. It is this faith which allows Colbert to acknowledge that “the tiger” is always with him, yet somehow it helps him integrate the tiger in his life. The Pope expresses this clearly in the next quote.
The Pope:
Even when limitations are experienced as inner suffering, human wisdom teaches us not to deny or suppress it, but to integrate it. To eliminate suffering entirely would mean, in the end, extinguishing love and desire as well. Those who love and desire cannot avoid passing through trial and suffering; and over the years, we carry within us lessons that leave their mark like scars, the memories of a journey shaped by freedom and failure, dreams and disappointments.
As I read these quotes, I sensed that Colbert and Cooper had internalized these insights somehow in the midst of their profound grief. The words of Sara Bareilles’s song also captured this profound sense of our humanness. It was written after she watched the Colbert-Cooper interview.
“Home"
I am one day older than my father was
Than he ever got to be
I was ten years old when I grew up
Cause he died at 53
I stared across the great divide
At my mother who was left
The dinner table stretched oceans wide
Like the hollow in our chests
I never asked hard questions
I thought they'd cause more pain
I hadn't yet learned life's holiest lesson
That what is broken cannot heal until it's known and loved by name
So tell me your story
I'll tell you mine
You don't need to worry
Everything's already alright
You be the universe
Nothing to hide
Anywhere you ever need to go
I can carry us home
I was taught to bury with the dead
The presence of my grief
I see it now, but didn't then
That silence is a thief
It made strangers out of friends
Robbed me of saving graces offered in unlikely places
I thought I could outrun it in the end
But when a shattered heart is desperate
The only respite is to let somebody in
Tell me your storyI'll tell you mine
You don't need to worry
Everything's already alright
You be the universe
Nothing to hide
Anywhere you ever need to go
I can carry us home
I can carry us home
I can carry us home
When I speak his name my voice gives out
Even after all these years
But I want my son to know me now
So my son will see my tears
So my son will see my tears
“The only respite is to let somebody in.” “Tell me your story, I’ll tell you mine.” Grief, one of our “limits,” can be healed when we connect to others and share our stories. Colbert and Cooper shared their stories. This is the wisdom of all those who have suffered, slaves, native peoples, women, abused children, gays, transgender individuals, immigrants, grieving parents, a grieving nation. This is our human condition. Tell our story, open ourselves, let others in. We are most human in our limits. Suffering can be a gift, a blessing. Not an easy truth, again Colbert’s “sad” truth. We are all bound by our limits. This is not an excuse for unjust suffering. We are held accountable for addressing injustices.
The Pope wants to make sure we do not lose this insight when he further said: “To renounce this adventure, both tragic and splendid, in the name of a presumed transcendence of all limits, could mean many things, but it would no longer be human.”
In our evolutionary history it is a moral trait that we have gained which has enhanced our survival as a species. I believe we do not want to lose it, regardless of how we continue to evolve as a species, knowing that our limits and finiteness will never disappear.
It would not be human! The Pope could not be clearer. Also, he could not be clearer when he denounces AI’s “anti-human” vision:
The Pope:
…the pervasive technocratic paradigm in which we are immersed, and that is amplified by the digital revolution and AI, threatens to normalize an anti-human vision. In that vision, the fullness of life is equated with having more, reducing weakness, eliminating uncertainty and exerting total control. When efficiency becomes the ultimate measure of value, human beings are tempted to see themselves as a project to be optimized rather than as persons called to relationship and communion.
Suffering is part of life. It is the basis of our humanness. This humanness is the resource for our empathy and compassion. I believe these are profound spiritual truths.
What to do with these truths? Back to Olah’s challenge for the humanities. Back to Pope Leo’s “discernment” process. That is a process that includes more voices of good will at the table. I add my voice. Please add yours.
I will further address these truths in my next post. This is another challenge to be “awake” during our “Bonhoeffer Moment.”
Resources for AI, Part I: Post #2
Anthropic founder, Chris Olah’s remarks at the Vatican
Pope Leo XIV’s Encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas
YouTube video Stephen Colbert and Anderson Cooper Interview
Transcript of Revisiting Stephen Colbert: Grateful for Grief
Sara Bareilles Interview with Anderson Cooper
Stephen Colbert’s Final Monologue of “The Late Show”
Reflections on Pope Leo’s First Encyclical, Bishop Marianne Budde
Robert Reich, Coffee Klatch with Heather Lofthouse…fast forward to his concerns about AI
Ted Peters’ Substack: The Public Theologian, this link is good preparation for my next post
Comments