The Diocese of Peoria plans to create an interactive hologram of Bl Fulton Sheen using artificial intelligence, a move that has prompted questions about the appropriateness of recreating someone who has died in this way.
The hologram will be part of the forthcoming Sheen Experience, a planned museum and cultural centre at Sheen’s former high school in Peoria, Illinois, Bishop Louis Tylka of Peoria explained.
Bishop Tylka made the comments in an interview with Catholic News Service while visiting Rome, where he presented Pope Leo XIV with a relic of Bl Sheen.
The hologram will be fully interactive, Bishop Tylka said, and will be able to answer questions from visitors to the Sheen Experience. The AI model will be trained on all of Bl Sheen’s writings, television appearances and other work. A demonstration version of the technology, which uses pre-loaded scripts, is already available to view in Peoria, he said.
There is no set timeline for the opening of the Sheen Experience, Bishop Tylka said, but he hopes it will open within the next three years. The Diocese of Peoria is seeking to raise $50 million to renovate, open and operate the museum.
The technology used to create a hologram of Bl Sheen could also be used to create interactive holograms of other saints, Bishop Tylka said.
Reactions to the announcement on social media were overwhelmingly negative.
“Remember 10 years ago when there was a huge controversy about using a 3D approximation of the deceased Peter Cushing’s face in Rogue One? Now apparently we just all but necromance dead bishops make them speak to us,” said Fr Paul Hedman, a priest from Minnesota, in a post on X. “Creating an interactive AI hologram Bl. Sheen is beyond words.”
Honestly? We don’t need this. The world isn’t clamoring for it. WWFSW? What Would Fulton Sheen Want? Not this, I’m fairly certain. There are endless hours of his talks and television appearances, thousands of pages of his writings. They speak for him. What he gave the world can’t be replicated authentically with data and computer chips. We shouldn’t even try.
And there’s this, from Pope Leo;
In this era of artificial intelligence, it is becoming urgent to distinguish human art from what machines produce. There is an ontological difference, even before an aesthetic one, between art and what a machine can generate through statistical calculation based on millions of images created by others. Algorithms lack the spark of humanity. For this reason, the Church wishes to renew an alliance with artists and cultural institutions to safeguard our humanity.
