From the Pastor's Desk - May 17, 2025

Dear St. Martin’s Parishioners,

          The Church rejoices in the election of our new Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV. As we are flooded with all kinds of information about his childhood, his college, his favorite baseball team, and all the rest, one of the interesting things that stood out to me is why he chose the name Leo. He expressed that he wanted to take up the mantle of Pope Leo XIII, who served as pope in the late 1800’s, and who died in 1903. Pope Leo XIII wrote the first social encyclical, Rerum Novarum (“New Things”), in response to the social conditions arising from the Industrial Revolution. Our current pope sees us as undergoing a new social revolution called the Digital Revolution. The advancement of AI, computers, technology and robotics has opened up new frontiers in human existence. This rapid advancement touches on all aspects of human life. Yet, the moral considerations of our new reality have not kept pace with the technological advancement. There is an immense danger in possessing great power without a moral framework that protects human dignity. We are adept at describing what a new technology is, but not so much at considering what it means. I am interested in seeing how Pope Leo XIV tackles the moral dimensions of the digital world in which we now live.

           While we live in the midst of the Digital Revolution, I believe we must relearn what it means to be human. We are so bombarded with questions of efficiency, productivity, progress, and technological advancement/dependence that we tend to forget our essential nature. God created us in his image and likeness, and through grace he invites us to participate in his divine nature. If we forget our origin, our nature and our destiny, we are bound to despair despite the technological progress in which we live. Our ultimate happiness is found only in God. As Pope Leo XIV is a member of the Augustinian order, he would appreciate the words of the great St. Augustine: “You have formed us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”

In Christ,

 Fr. Dave