Pope Leo XIV on AI: A Simple Test Every Homeschooling Parent Should Use
“Use It So That If It Disappeared, You’d Still Know How to Think”
Pope Leo’s first encyclical Magnifica Humanitas addresses questions relating to human dignity in the age of artificial intelligence. There’s a lot we could unpack in this new encyclical, but in my opinion, Leo’s most insightful comments on AI are in a speech he gave in November of 2025 at the National Catholic Youth Conference.
When Pope Leo XIV addressed 16,000 young Catholics at the National Catholic Youth Conference last November, he said something that, in my opinion, every homeschooling parent should tape to their refrigerator:
“Use AI in such a way that if it disappeared tomorrow, you would still know how to think, how to create, how to act on your own, how to form authentic friendships.”
On the surface, it’s a pretty simple statement, but if we unpack it a bit, we begin to see that it is actually one of the most useful educational diagnostics we have relating to our engagement with artificial intelligence.
The Real Question Isn’t “Should We Use AI?”
I still see a lot of Catholic commentators arguing that we shouldn’t use AI at all. Some are even trying to make the case that it is sinful to do so, which is quite a stretch. Such commentators have lost the plot. The question is no longer whether we should use AI. That ship has sailed. AI tools are already deeply woven into daily life—in writing apps, search engines, tutoring platforms, and even some curricula. The question Catholic homeschooling families actually need to answer is more pointed: Are we using these tools in a way that builds our children, or in a way that quietly hollows them out?
Pope Leo’s Magnifica Humanitas frames this succinctly. He warns that the pervasiveness of digital media fosters “a culture of immediacy and hyper-stimulation,” producing fatigue, boredom, and a creeping apathy in young people toward the effort that truth actually requires. Education, he says, is the antidote, but only if it remains “a long journey requiring patience” and “engagement with reality beyond appearances” (MH, 139-140).
Catholic homeschooling has always been about that kind of “long journey” that Pope Leo speaks of. It is a commitment to fostering the values of critical thinking and character formation over the long run, focusing not just on academics but on the development of the whole person in the image of Christ. The question is whether we are protecting the integrity of the “long journey” in the age of AI.
Formation: The Struggle is the Learning
Catholic anthropology gives us a clear framework to work from. We believe that the human person is made in the image and likeness of God, and that this imago Dei is expressed especially through our capacity to reason, to create, and to love. These aren’t just nice abilities. They are the essential faculties of the soul.
When a child works through a hard math problem, struggles to find the right word in an essay, or reads a difficult passage and wrestles with its meaning, that struggle is formative. The struggle is not an obstacle to learning; it is the learning. The discomfort of not-yet-knowing—and the satisfaction of finally understanding—shapes a mind that can think independently.
AI, used carelessly, short-circuits that formation. It hands the child the answer before the question has had time to do its work. It delivers an end result without the child having to perform the intellectual labor necessary to attain it. And it undercuts learning entirely.
To use an analogy, imagine you want to get more cardio exercise, so you decide to jog up to the coffee shop each morning. This is great, but… jogging is hard; you’re winded by the time you’re done, and your legs are sore. So you decide to just take the car and drive to the coffee shop instead. You are still going where you want to go, but because you are eliminating all the effort, you will not reap the rewards—you are no longer reaping the cardiovascular benefits of the jog because you eliminated the physical labor that creates those benefits in the first place.
This isn’t some kind of neo-Luddite reaction against technology just because it’s “new”. It is a recognition that if we want our children to learn, we need to preserve the “struggle” aspect of education, precisely where intellectual formation occurs.
Four Habits That Build AI-Resistant Minds
So what does this look like practically? Here are four habits you can build into your homeschool to safeguard the educational process:
1. Require first drafts to be fully human.
Whatever the writing assignment (a narration, an essay, a lab report), the first draft must come entirely from your child’s own mind and hand. AI can serve as a revision tool for giving feedback or checking for typos after the thinking has already happened. The sequence matters enormously. Drafting is where the thinking occurs; revision is where it gets refined. If you reverse that order, you lose the most important step.
2. Protect the struggle.
When your child gets stuck on a math problem, a Latin declension, or a logic puzzle, resist the urge to reach for a shortcut. Sit with them in the difficulty. Ask questions rather than providing answers. “What do you already know about this?” is often more useful than any explanation. The tolerance for productive struggle is itself a skill. Resist the urge to ask AI for the answer, just like you have probably taught them to resist just Googling an answer.
3. Practice verbal articulation.
One of the best tests of genuine understanding is whether a child can explain something out loud, without notes, to another person. Make this a regular part of your school day. After a reading, after a lesson, or at the dinner table, ask your child to verbally articulate what they learned. If your child can explain it clearly, they understand it. Obviously, some children will do better at this than others (especially if your child has an articulation-based learning disability), but it is nevertheless an important method to work on, as it is something AI can never do.
4. Cultivate boredom as a learning condition.
Pope Leo’s warning about hyper-stimulation is worth taking seriously. A child who has been trained to expect constant digital engagement will struggle enormously with the patient, slow work of real learning. Protect stretches of quiet; let your children be bored! Boredom is often the doorway to genuine creativity and contemplation, and it is something a screen can never provide.
Doing the Work of Becoming Fully Human
To go back to Pope Leo’s comments, here is a practical test you can apply to any use of AI in your homeschool: If the tool disappeared, what would my child still be able to do?
If the answer is “everything they could do before, only a bit slower,” that’s a good sign. However, if the answer is “I’m not sure they could do it at all without the tool,” that’s a signal that the AI tool is actually hindering your child’s learning.
Pope Leo wasn’t asking young people to completely reject technology. He asked them (and us) to refuse to let it become a substitute for the hard, holy work of becoming fully human.
What are your thoughts on this topic? I invite you to join other homeschooling parents and me in the Homeschool Connections Community or our Facebook group.
