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Justice Is Our Way of Life

IPA
Aug 27
3 min read

Transformative Justice Reflection: Sr Pegge Boehm PBVM   July, 2026 / Issue 1


Dear Sisters: In my new role as IPA Justice Contact, I’m feeling challenged leading our justice mission into the future.  I desire us to experience justice in a more reflective, contemplative way, leading to authentic personal and societal transformation.  I am experimenting with a format to reflect this new way of life.   I plan on structuring each newsletter with the theological reflection process of “pray, reflect, act” with a current issue of concern. Each issue will engage our community’s values in light of the Gospel, Presentation spirituality and/or Catholic Social Teaching.  You are invited to use them personally, in small groups, and/or with others. This surely is a work in progress.  You are most welcome to share your ideas about this format, how to make it more user-friendly, and how you might use it, how many times you’d like to receive it and offer some other topics.   Gratefully yours in joyful service,  Sr. Pegge

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Care for Creation

Prayer: (From Pax Christi USA adaptation of the last paragraph of Magnifica Humanitas (MH), Pope Leo’s encyclical on AI)

With the same faith as Mary, let us become “weavers of hope” in our world, sharing who we are and what we have, so that the presence of Jesus may grow among us and that God’s kin-dom may take shape.  In the humble fidelity of daily life, even the era of AI can become a time in which the Holy Spirit brings about the civilization of love in our lives.  Indeed, God continues to make all things new and offers every era the possibility of becoming part of salvation history in the light of the Incarnation.  We entrust our prayer, study and action for a “civilization of love” to the Mother of Jesus; the Woman of the anti-colonial prayer of resistance, the “Magnificat”; that she may guide our steps through this time of change and preserve in each of us true faith in the Gospel, so that we may bear witness to the grandeur of humanity.  Amen.  

Study:  Dr. Catherine Wright, a Professor of Ecotheology at the University of Wingate in North Carolina, and a presenter of Prairie Spirituality for the Avera leaders in April, had the dream to design software that will give citizens an opportunity to take pictures of suspicious environmental concerns, possibly tracking water issues with the building of AI Data Centers. This data would be collected, collated in such a way that its integrity would hold up in court.  

With the slashing of resources at EPA and other governmental regulatory agencies, it is more important than ever for citizen documentarians to collect sound, verifiable data.  Dr. Wright and the software developers are interested in ways this app could be used here in South Dakota. Read more about the emerging app:  https://www.nc-eac.org  


Sioux Falls City Council approved rezoning of proposed data center with a 7-0 vote.  https://www.sdpb.org/politics/2026-01-07/sioux-falls-city-council-approves-rezoning-of-proposed-data-center-land  “This one facility is projected to more than double our entire city’s energy consumption.”


Reflection: “Calling for prudence, rigorous evaluation and even, at times, a slower pace in adopting AI does not mean opposing progress; instead, it is an exercise of responsible care for the human family. Pope Leo XIV, #105 MH


Either we take up the human task, or we let the phase transition resolve into a future in which the question of being human stops being asked—because the beings capable of asking it have flattened into machines. Ilia Delio, a Franciscan Sister of Washington, DC and American theologian


Reflection/Discussion Questions:

Expand upon what it means to be human?  For starters:  To be human means to be created in the image of God, endowed with dignity, purpose and moral responsibility.  Emotional intelligence sets us apart – feelings of joy, grief, empathy, etc.

What benefits might AI offer?  What are some threats from AI?


Action:

 
 
 

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