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Vatican history commission working to preserve truth in the AI age, says new US member
Confirmed
In Short: The appointment comes as the Vatican is increasingly concerned about the potential dangers of a failure to accurately understand history in the age of artificial intelligence.
Pope Leo XIV has appointed Francesco Cesareo, an American Catholic educator, to the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences, a key pontifical commission focused on preserving historical truth.
Cesareo, who is currently an adjunct professor of history at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary and Villanova University, Pope Leo’s alma mater, was announced as a new member of the committee on Aug. 25.
The Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences is a research-oriented commission that advises the Holy Father and the Curia on questions of historical importance.
Cesareo emphasized the commission's mission to preserve and nurture historical truth and pass it on to the next generation.
Cesareo’s role involves supporting and enacting ways to safeguard and share truth and fact, and their relationship with the Catholic faith.
The Vatican also released a document calling for the creation of a new interdicasterial body to evaluate bishops’ ad limina visits, which are required visits to Rome roughly every five years.
The document aims to overhaul the Vatican questionnaire to better tailor it to each local Church and give more space for bishops to express their expectations from the visits.
The conference, organized by the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, discussed the ecumenical initiative “Commission for New Martyrs — Witnesses of the Faith,” established by Pope Francis in 2023.
The commission has recorded the deaths of over 1,700 martyrs in the 21st century, including Christians from other denominations.
Pope Leo XIV praised the witness and evangelizing power of modern Christian martyrs during a Vatican conference on the topic.
What this adds
The Vatican's efforts to preserve historical truth and document martyrdom reflect a broader focus on the Church's role in navigating contemporary challenges.
What's confirmed
- The Vatican published a papal decree repealing 2021 salary cuts that Pope Francis had imposed on many Vatican employees as part of the Holy See’s COVID-19 cost-saving measures.
- Pope Leo XIV, left, looks at the installation "Diluvium" by French artist Jean Rene, known as JR, as he arrives at the Vatican Library, Monday, Sept.
- Pope Leo XIV, center, waves as he arrives with Bishop Giacomo Cardinali, vice prefect of the Vatican Library, fifth from left, Prefect of the Papal Household, Archbishop Petar Rajič, first at left, and President of the Pontifical Commission and Governorate of Vatican City State sister Raffaella Petrini, second from right, at the Vatican Library, Monday, Sept.
- The conference, organised by the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, discussed the ecumenical initiative “Commission for New Martyrs — Witnesses of the Faith” established by Pope Francis in 2023 to document the deaths of Christians of all denominations who have been killed for their faith since 2000.
What's still developing
- PHILADELPHIA (OSV News) — Pope Leo XIV has added one of America’s leading Catholic educators with expertise in the connection between history and the faith to a key pontifical commission at the Vatican focused on preserving truth, at a time when the Holy Father is warning of how a failure to accurately understand history could lead to a politically and technologically more dangerous future for the world.
- It came from what the committee called “perspective radically renewed by the progress made in the historical sciences” since the war, which was replete with political propaganda and ideology-based information control that often disguised horrific truths about the actions of the war’s combatants.
- “Catholic social doctrine is basically a theology of history in terms of how the Church navigates, not in isolation, but navigates by journeying through a particular time and a particular moment so that the Gospel becomes the means by which we can answer the fundamental questions so that humanity is not alienated,” Father Dailey said.
- “That’s one of the goals of the commission,” said Cesareo, “to ensure that historical truth is accessible and is communicated and not distorted by whatever ideological perspective one may have.” Cesareo is the sole American on the Vatican committee as of Sept.
- His educational background has included numerous roles of study at the Vatican and in universities in Rome.
- “The Ad Limina Visits in a Missionary Synodal Perspective” is the second text prepared by Study Group 7, one of 10 groups established by Pope Francis in 2024 after the synod on synodality’s first session at the Vatican.
- Other members of the group included Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, before his election as Pope Leo XIV, Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, Cardinal Mario Grech, Cardinal Claudio Gugerotti, and Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, the synod on synodality’s relator general.
- The final reports of the 10 study groups are defined as “working documents.” When a group submits its final report to the General Secretariat of the Synod, it has completed its mandate and is dissolved.
- Vatican officials will go through each of the final reports, looking for “operative proposals” that will be presented to Leo XIV, who will decide whether they should be enacted.
- Bishops are expected to prepare reports on their dioceses ahead of the visits, with the help of a Vatican questionnaire.
- September 16, 2026 By Caroline de Sury OSV News Filed Under: Feature, News, Vatican, World News PARIS (OSV News) — With a little over a week left in France to welcome Pope Leo XIV, the country’s Catholics hope for a “breath” of “new life” into their Church from the pope.
- The pontiff held a private audience at the Vatican on September 16 with participants in the conference The 21st Century: A New Time of Martyrs?