An Anthropic web page is seen in this March 1, 2026, illustration. (OSV News photo/Dado Ruvic, Reuters) “There are those who say, we shouldn’t be using these machines to produce homilies. Well, have you listened to the average homily on a Sunday? They could do with a bit of improvement,” said Fr Brendan McGuire in conversation with The Irish Catholic, speaking about the positive ways to use AI in developing a homily.
Fr McGuire is an Irish priest who has lived and ministered in Silicon Valley, California for 25 years, and prior to his ordination, worked in the field of technology. The priest is also co-founder of the Institute for Technology, Ethics and Culture (ITEC), a partnership centred around starting dialogue between faith and tech leaders on how to provide ethical frameworks for AI. ITEC is a collaboration between the Vatican Dicastery for Culture and Education and Santa Clara University.
Fr McGuire, who uses the AI tool Claude in developing his own homilies as parish priest of St Simon’s parish, argued that priests should not be hesitant to use AI to save time.
“I think it can be a great tool to help in developing a homily…it can’t write a homily, well it can write a homily truth be told…but that’s not what I want. I want an integrated homily with the stories of our lives and the lives of our parishioners.”
Fr McGuire has programmed Claude to help him with the formation of the homily in seconds, something that would normally take him hours.
“I get that we’re very very busy people,” said Fr McGuire, “but we don’t have the same commitment as we used to have years ago. We need to step up our game as priests, and I think this could be one of the tools that enable us to increase the quality of our homily.”
Fr McGuire acknowledged that much of the hesitancy around AI arises out of ethical concerns, and whether these tools can “lead to an authentic encounter with God.” Thus, his work with ITEC aims to combat this hesitancy by applying ethical principles to the formation of AI tools.