embodiment

BONUS: Should Catholics Trust AI?

Artificial intelligence is changing how we search for information, write, create, learn, and even pray. But what happens when AI enters the life of the Church?

In this episode of Brave New Us, Samantha Stephenson sits down with Tim, creator of Chatechism, one of the most ambitious Catholic AI projects to date. Together they explore not only what AI can do for Catholics, but also where it should—and shouldn't—go.

Rather than offering easy answers, this conversation wrestles honestly with some of the biggest questions facing the Church in the age of artificial intelligence: Can an AI ever be trusted with spiritual guidance? What responsibilities do Catholic developers have toward truth, ecology, and the common good? Should AI help write homilies or daily reflections? And what might faithful innovation actually look like?

Whether you're excited about AI, deeply skeptical, or somewhere in between, this episode offers a thoughtful Catholic framework for engaging one of the defining technologies of our time.

In this episode:

  • Why Catholics shouldn't simply fear artificial intelligence—or embrace it uncritically.

  • How large language models actually work, and why hallucinations remain one of their biggest limitations.

  • Why Chatechism was created and the vision behind building a distinctly Catholic AI.

  • What makes a trustworthy Catholic AI different from a generic chatbot trained on religious content.

  • The ethical responsibilities of Catholic AI developers, including concerns about bias, reliability, environmental costs, and cooperation with morally problematic technology companies.

  • How one Catholic family is navigating AI with children of every age—from toddlers to adults.

  • The risks AI poses to education, creativity, and authentic human formation.

  • Whether AI-generated spiritual reflections and homilies enrich the Church—or risk displacing the unique work of the Holy Spirit through human authors, pastors, and communities.

  • Why Catholics need to help shape the future of artificial intelligence instead of watching from the sidelines.

  • Tim's answer to the Brave New Us closing question: Who best embodies what it means to be truly human?

Resources Mentioned

Connect with Samantha

If you enjoy thoughtful conversations about biotechnology, artificial intelligence, faith, and what it means to remain deeply human in an age of rapid technological change, subscribe to Brave New Us wherever you listen to podcasts.

You can also find Samantha's writing at Choosing Human, where she explores bioethics, motherhood, technology, and Christian anthropology.

BONUS: Should Catholics Trust AI?
Brave New Us

Touching Grass: Why I Gave Up My Homestead Dream

What if the answer isn’t escaping modern life, but learning to inhabit it differently?

In this season finale, Samantha reflects on her own attraction to the homestead ideal — and why she ultimately reconsidered what it means to live sustainably, faithfully, and attentively in the place God has already given her.

This episode marks the beginning of a summer pause for Brave New Us and an invitation to continue the conversation through gardening, stewardship, and cultivation on YouTube.

In this episode:

  • The appeal and limits of the homestead dream

  • Stewardship versus escape

  • Gardening as an embodied spiritual practice

  • An invitation to grow where you’re planted

Summer Update:
Brave New Us will return after a seasonal break. In the meantime, join Samantha on YouTube for garden stories, practical growing, and reflections on embodiment, limits, and care for creation.

Buy the book:

Grow Where You’re Planted: Reclaming Eden in Your Own Backyard

Season FINALE: Touching Grass, Or Why I Gave Up My Homestead Dream
Brave New Us

Your Uterus or Mine? How Transplantation Is Changing the Face of Reproductive Medicine | Dr. Andrew Kubick

Medical breakthroughs often arrive faster than our moral vocabulary can keep up.

Samantha speaks with Andrew Kubick of the National Catholic Bioethics Center about uterine transplantation — from its therapeutic promise for women experiencing infertility to the profound ethical questions raised as reproductive technology expands toward increasingly experimental possibilities.

When medicine gains the power not only to heal but to redesign reproduction, how should we think about human dignity, motherhood, and the meaning of the body itself?

In this episode:

  • The science and ethics of uterine transplants

  • Therapeutic medicine vs. technological expansion

  • Bioethics and Catholic moral reasoning

  • The cultural implications of redefining reproduction

Buy the book:

Transplanting the Womb

Your Uterus or Mine? How Transplantation Is Changing the Face of Reproductive Medicine | Dr. Andrew
Brave New Us

Made Good: Making Peace with the Body (with a Catholic Nutritionist)

What if health begins not with control, but with trust?

Samantha speaks with a Catholic nutritionist about holistic health, women’s metabolism, and the growing desire to step out of cycles of restriction and anxiety surrounding food and wellness.

Together they explore how Christian anthropology offers a different starting point for health: the body as created good, meaningful, and worthy of care rather than suspicion.

In this episode:

  • Holistic health and the limits of modern wellness culture

  • Women’s health, metabolism, and stress

  • Faith and nutrition

  • Learning to cooperate with the body instead of fighting it

Buy the Book:

Made Good

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Made Good: Making Peace with the Body (with a Catholic Nutritionist)
Brave New Us

Disembodiment — Or Something Else?

Modern culture is often described as disembodied — detached from physical reality and increasingly virtual. But is that diagnosis accurate?

In this episode, Samantha responds to arguments about “disembodiment,” proposing instead that modern life has produced a cluster of bodily effects: heightened anxiety about health, constant self-monitoring, and confusion about what the body means or how it should be understood.

Rather than abandoning the body, we may be struggling to interpret it.

In this episode:

  • A response to Helen Roy’s argument on disembodiment

  • Why modern people are hyper-focused on their bodies rather than detached from them

  • Technology, medicine, and the loss of bodily intelligibility

  • How diagnosing the problem shapes the path toward healing

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Disembodiment — Or Something Else?
Brave New Us