A ‘chatbot’ can’t replace angels, Bishop Varden tells Pope Leo, Roman Curia
LEICESTER, United Kingdom – There is a “prophetic challenge” facing the Church in today’s world with the rise of “digital, artificial” media, according to Bishop Erik Varden, who is conducting the Lenten spiritual retreat at the Vatican.
The Norwegian convert is a Trappist monk currently serving as Bishop of Trondheim in his native Norway.
Pope Leo XIV chose Varden to lead the retreat, which is taking place in the Pauline Chapel of the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican for the pontiff and leading members of the Roman curia. Pope Leo has stressed the changing technology of the 21st century since his election last year.
“It is a prophetic challenge, given how much so-called ‘education’ is now farmed out to digital, artificial media, while young people yearn to meet teachers who are worthy of trust, who can impart not only skills but wisdom,” Varden told the Vatican officials.
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“An angelic encounter is always personal. It cannot be replaced by a download or a chatbot,” he added.
During his reflection, the monk-bishop spoke of St. John Henry Newman, who “thought a lot about angels,” and was recently proclaimed a Doctor of the Church by Leo himself.
Although Norwegian, Varden spent the majority of his religious life in Newman’s native England. He was ordained at the Trappist monastery of Mount St. Bernard Abbey in the English county of Leicestershire, where he later served as the abbot. Pope Francis sent Varden to be a bishop in Norway in 2020.
In his address to the pope and curia, Varden said Newman envisaged the priest’s ministry “as angelic.”
“The priest is at home in this world, unafraid to go into dark woods in search of the lost. At the same time he keeps his mind’s eyes raised towards the Father’s face, letting its radiance illumine all present reality. Illumination is ever a twofold process: Intellectual and essential, sacramental and pedagogical,” Varden said.
He added Newman “invites us to rediscover the teacher, too, as angelic enlightener.”
“Angelic interventions are not always reassuring. The angels are not there to humor us in our caprices. In a popular prayer traceable to … Reginald of Canterbury we ask our guardian angel to ‘enlighten, keep, govern, and guide’ us. These are hefty verbs. An angel is a guardian of holiness,” he said.
During his talk on Thursday, he focused on the role angels play in the Church from the beginning, which continues to this day.
He noted Saint Bernard of Clairvaux – who lived in the 12th century – stresses the angels’ role as mediators of God’s providence.
“Mediation is not always called for. God can touch us immediately, but he delights in letting his creatures be channels of grace to one another,” he said.
“He admonishes us to look at what an angel does and do likewise: ‘Descend, and show mercy to your neighbor; next, in a second movement, letting the same angel elevate your desires,” Varden said, quoting Saint Bernard, “‘use all the cupiditas of your soul to rise towards the most high and eternal truth’.”
Still quoting Saint Bernard, Varden said, “Cupid is rarely referred to, these days, in the same breath as ‘most high and eternal truth’,” the bishop says, quoting the saint.
Cupid is the Roman name for the Greek god, Eros, whose name means “desire” and whose operations in the souls of human beings often brought on a sort of madness that often ended in ruin. Varden was not invoking the cherubic figure of contemporary Valentine’s Day shlock, but a power the ancients considered a primordial force in the world and in the soul.
In the thought of Saint Bernard, the core of the Christian life is not the suppression of eros but its right ordering to its source, God himself.
“Bernard’s choice of vocabulary is telling,” Varden told the retreatants.
“It tells us that all natural human yearnings, including those that are embodied, are drawn towards fulfilment in God, so must be guided towards it,” he said.
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