US bishops’ committee chairs call on AI industry to defend religious freedom

A warning before October 27

Two U.S. bishops’ committee chairs have warned that AI could widen religious surveillance and persecution, calling for cooperation across society, including the private sector. Archbishop Alexander K. Sample chairs the USCCB Committee for Religious Liberty; Bishop A. Elias Zaidan chairs its Committee on International Justice and Peace.

Their October 21 statement precedes International Religious Freedom Day on October 27. It places human dignity at the center of the response and describes the international committee’s collaboration with the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. It does not identify a new surveillance incident, announce a corporate agreement or set enforceable technical requirements. Source: usccb.org

Why the private-sector reference matters

The concern has a technological history. A September 2019 USCIRF report explained how AI systems can combine video, facial and voice recognition, location information and other data to identify patterns. That earlier report examined China; it is background to the mechanism, not evidence that a new event occurred this week. USCIRF’s role is to monitor religious freedom abroad and recommend policy, rather than make the bishops’ appeal binding. Source: uscirf.gov

The practical question therefore reaches beyond whether an AI assistant gives a respectful answer about religion. Information about worship, community membership or belief can become consequential when it is collected, combined and used to classify people. A statement of respect for religion does not, by itself, tell an affected community what such a system does or how to challenge its use.

For churches engaging technology suppliers, one useful question is: what prevents information about religious practice from becoming a basis for adverse treatment? A useful answer would identify the intended use, excluded uses and a route for raising concerns. Those are editorial questions prompted by the warning, not requirements the bishops adopted or safeguards we have verified.

Christian application: dignity beyond agreement

James 3:1–12 addresses the power and inconsistency of human speech, beginning with responsibility among teachers. Verses 9–10 condemn praising God while cursing people made in God’s likeness. The passage is not a technical rule for AI, but its reasoning matters: another person’s dignity does not disappear when we disagree with their beliefs. James 3:1-12 (NIV)

Applied here, Christian concern should extend beyond protecting Christian users or institutions. A church can defend its convictions while opposing the reduction of another religious community to a suspicious category. That is a moral reason to scrutinize technology’s treatment of people. Establishing whether a particular system discriminates still requires evidence, not theological inference.