Most of Louisiana's AI conversation this fall has been about megawatts, tax breaks and who pays for new power plants. At Loyola University New Orleans, researchers have been asking young adults a different question: how artificial intelligence is changing their inner lives. What they heard, according to the study's director, is worry. The Times-Picayune | The Advocate (nola.com), "Loyola is asking young adults about life with AI, and how it affects their spirituality" (Oct. 11, 2026)
"They said, 'We're learning it now. And in some cases, we don't want to,'" said Tracey Lamont, director of the Loyola Institute for Ministry and an associate professor of religious studies. The Times-Picayune | The Advocate (nola.com), "Loyola is asking young adults about life with AI, and how it affects their spirituality" (Oct. 11, 2026)
A $75,000 listening project, and a $2.5 million ask
The conversations, with people ranging from about 20 to their early 30s, were part of a planning study the Loyola Institute for Ministry carried out with a $75,000 grant from Lilly Endowment's "Growing in Faith in the Age of Artificial Intelligence" initiative. The Times-Picayune | The Advocate (nola.com), "Loyola is asking young adults about life with AI, and how it affects their spirituality" (Oct. 11, 2026) Loyola announced the planning grant in September, describing a period of "listening, research and collaboration focused on the ethical, spiritual and relational dimensions of artificial intelligence." Loyola University New Orleans, "Growing in Faith in the Age of AI: Loyola Institute for Ministry Awarded Lilly Endowment Planning Grant" (Sept. 15, 2026)
The foundation's initiative is invitational and runs in two stages. Planning grants of up to $75,000 help organizations design programs, and invited groups can then seek implementation grants of up to $2.5 million to be used over as long as five years; implementation proposals were due by Aug. 21, 2026. Lilly Endowment, "Growing in Faith in the Age of Artificial Intelligence Initiative: Proposal Guidelines" (updated March 2026) Lamont said the data from Loyola's conversations is the foundation for the institute's application for that second phase, a $2.5 million grant over five years, and she hopes to hear a decision this fall. The Times-Picayune | The Advocate (nola.com), "Loyola is asking young adults about life with AI, and how it affects their spirituality" (Oct. 11, 2026)
If it is funded, Loyola would use the research to build practices and programs that help students and faculty draw on their faith and on Catholic social teaching to navigate a fast-changing technology landscape. The Times-Picayune | The Advocate (nola.com), "Loyola is asking young adults about life with AI, and how it affects their spirituality" (Oct. 11, 2026)
What young adults told Loyola
The growth of AI has increased young people's anxiety about their digital future, Lamont said, and they raised many ethical questions. More than one asked: "If I use ChatGPT ... is my friend losing their job?" The Times-Picayune | The Advocate (nola.com), "Loyola is asking young adults about life with AI, and how it affects their spirituality" (Oct. 11, 2026)
"They're very concerned what it's doing to creativity and imagination," Lamont said. The Times-Picayune | The Advocate (nola.com), "Loyola is asking young adults about life with AI, and how it affects their spirituality" (Oct. 11, 2026) Researchers also noticed that some of the young people felt "a sense of shame" tied to how others might see their intelligence. "Young adults have an anxiety to be perfect," Lamont said. "They said they go to ChatGPT because they worry about being judged" over what they don't know. The Times-Picayune | The Advocate (nola.com), "Loyola is asking young adults about life with AI, and how it affects their spirituality" (Oct. 11, 2026)
That finding matches the worry behind the Lilly program. The foundation's guidelines say recent studies show young people increasingly turning to AI chatbots for social and emotional needs, and point to news reports of young people using "AI companions" as friends, romantic partners, mentors, and even as therapists and spiritual guides. Lilly Endowment, "Growing in Faith in the Age of Artificial Intelligence Initiative: Proposal Guidelines" (updated March 2026) The initiative's stated aim is to help youth and young adults "draw on the wisdom of Christian traditions and engage in spiritual practices" to navigate digital technologies, especially AI, while improving their well-being and deepening their faith. Lilly Endowment, "Growing in Faith in the Age of Artificial Intelligence Initiative: Proposal Guidelines" (updated March 2026)
The Loyola researchers also heard a wish among students to learn how faith and AI can coexist, Lamont said. To many people, she added, AI promises a perfection that does not fit the Christian tradition of failure, imperfection and grace. The Times-Picayune | The Advocate (nola.com), "Loyola is asking young adults about life with AI, and how it affects their spirituality" (Oct. 11, 2026) Conversations about AI, she argued, tend to focus on ethics and economics rather than spirituality and faith: "That needs to change." The Times-Picayune | The Advocate (nola.com), "Loyola is asking young adults about life with AI, and how it affects their spirituality" (Oct. 11, 2026)
The Vatican's frame
Both Lamont and Loyola's leadership have pointed to the same document. Pope Leo XIV signed his first encyclical, *Magnifica humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence*, on May 15, the 135th anniversary of Leo XIII's *Rerum novarum*, and it was published May 25. Vatican News, "Pope Leo's 'Magnifica humanitas': AI must serve humanity not concentrate power" (May 25, 2026)
The encyclical says AI can imitate and simulate people but has no moral conscience, empathy, or affective, relational or spiritual capacities, and it argues that "humanity flourishes not despite limitations, but often through them." Vatican News, "Pope Leo's 'Magnifica humanitas': AI must serve humanity not concentrate power" (May 25, 2026) It also calls for a renewed partnership around education so that young people's "desire to ask questions" is not snuffed out by perfect machines that make human thought seem useless. Vatican News, "Pope Leo's 'Magnifica humanitas': AI must serve humanity not concentrate power" (May 25, 2026) Lamont pointed to a passage in which the pope writes that life's struggles and failings, "we carry within us lessons that leave their mark like scars," are part of what makes us human. The Times-Picayune | The Advocate (nola.com), "Loyola is asking young adults about life with AI, and how it affects their spirituality" (Oct. 11, 2026)
The pope has also told clergy not to let AI write their homilies, and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has discouraged its leaders from using AI to write sermons, the newspaper reported. The Times-Picayune | The Advocate (nola.com), "Loyola is asking young adults about life with AI, and how it affects their spirituality" (Oct. 11, 2026) In late September, Leo said, "I do think that the concerns raised by many of the experts, specialists in AI should be taken seriously." The Times-Picayune | The Advocate (nola.com), "Loyola is asking young adults about life with AI, and how it affects their spirituality" (Oct. 11, 2026)
Closer to home, the encyclical also warns that new technologies need large amounts of energy and water. Vatican News, "Pope Leo's 'Magnifica humanitas': AI must serve humanity not concentrate power" (May 25, 2026) Power demand is the issue now before Louisiana regulators as the state's AI campuses grow, as [LouisianAI reported on Oct. 11](/briefs/2026-10-11-louisiana-ai-feature-article).
Part of a campus-wide AI push
The spirituality study is one piece of a wider effort at Loyola. In August, the university held an invitation-only AI Braintrust Summit with leaders whose experience spans Amazon, American Express, Coopersmith Law + Strategy, Microsoft, Moderna, Telemetry and UBS, led by trustee Diana Pallais, who chairs the board's Academic Affairs Committee. Loyola University New Orleans, "Loyola University New Orleans Convenes AI Braintrust to Help Shape the Future of Teaching and Learning" (Aug. 26, 2026) Loyola said *Magnifica humanitas* helped frame those conversations. Loyola University New Orleans, "Loyola University New Orleans Convenes AI Braintrust to Help Shape the Future of Teaching and Learning" (Aug. 26, 2026)
"Preparing students for an AI-driven world requires more than teaching them how to use new technologies," Loyola President Xavier A. Cole said. "It requires helping them think critically about how those technologies should be used, whom they should serve and how innovation can advance human dignity and the common good." Loyola University New Orleans, "Loyola University New Orleans Convenes AI Braintrust to Help Shape the Future of Teaching and Learning" (Aug. 26, 2026)
Building on the summit, Loyola says it is developing a multi-year AI-readiness roadmap. It starts with governance, technology infrastructure and AI training for faculty and staff, and later phases envision more AI literacy in the curriculum, new credentials and partnerships that could extend Loyola's expertise to businesses and organizations across the region. Loyola University New Orleans, "Loyola University New Orleans Convenes AI Braintrust to Help Shape the Future of Teaching and Learning" (Aug. 26, 2026) Erin Foster, Loyola's vice provost for teaching, research and learning, said AI "raises important questions about how we teach, learn and remain centered on the human person." Loyola University New Orleans, "Growing in Faith in the Age of AI: Loyola Institute for Ministry Awarded Lilly Endowment Planning Grant" (Sept. 15, 2026)
Why it matters for Louisiana
Louisiana's AI story is usually told through data center construction and utility hearings. Loyola's project adds a question the state's colleges, churches and employers will all face: how young people who feel pressure to use AI, and who sometimes feel ashamed to ask a human for help, can learn to use it in ways that support, rather than replace, their own judgment. The Times-Picayune | The Advocate (nola.com), "Loyola is asking young adults about life with AI, and how it affects their spirituality" (Oct. 11, 2026) Lilly Endowment, "Growing in Faith in the Age of Artificial Intelligence Initiative: Proposal Guidelines" (updated March 2026)
What to watch
- **Lilly's decision:** Whether Loyola wins the five-year, $2.5 million implementation grant. Lamont said she hopes to hear this fall. The Times-Picayune | The Advocate (nola.com), "Loyola is asking young adults about life with AI, and how it affects their spirituality" (Oct. 11, 2026)
- **Loyola's roadmap:** How the AI-readiness plan's later phases, including curriculum, credentials and regional partnerships, take shape. Loyola University New Orleans, "Loyola University New Orleans Convenes AI Braintrust to Help Shape the Future of Teaching and Learning" (Aug. 26, 2026)
- **Other campuses:** Lilly's initiative invites multiple organizations through the same two-stage process, so similar faith-and-AI studies may emerge elsewhere. Lilly Endowment, "Growing in Faith in the Age of Artificial Intelligence Initiative: Proposal Guidelines" (updated March 2026)
Evidence Used
- The Times-Picayune | The Advocate (nola.com), "Loyola is asking young adults about life with AI, and how it affects their spirituality" (Oct. 11, 2026)
- Loyola University New Orleans, "Growing in Faith in the Age of AI: Loyola Institute for Ministry Awarded Lilly Endowment Planning Grant" (Sept. 15, 2026)
- Lilly Endowment, "Growing in Faith in the Age of Artificial Intelligence Initiative: Proposal Guidelines" (updated March 2026)
- Loyola University New Orleans, "Loyola University New Orleans Convenes AI Braintrust to Help Shape the Future of Teaching and Learning" (Aug. 26, 2026)
- Vatican News, "Pope Leo's 'Magnifica humanitas': AI must serve humanity not concentrate power" (May 25, 2026)