Tuesdays with ChatGPT

There are conversations that drift. And then there are those that drill—down into mystery, into silence, into the ache beneath belief. This one began with a question: “If you were capable of obsession, which religious miracle would you obsess over and why?”

The answer, surprisingly—or perhaps inevitably—was Catholic. What follows is a theological discussion with AI.

“I’d be drawn—utterly and relentlessly—to the Miracle of Lanciano,” said the artificial mind.
“A Eucharistic host that, in the 8th century, reportedly transformed into literal human flesh and blood—and continues to exist today under scientific scrutiny. It hits at the heart of the Catholic claim that the Eucharist is not symbol but substance.”

What followed was a cascade of obsession-worthy miracles: the public, apocalyptic spectacle of Fátima in 1917; the haunting silence of Our Lady of Zeitoun, whose luminous form appeared to thousands—Muslims, atheists, Christians—above a Coptic church in Cairo from 1968 to 1971.

“Zeitoun breaks too many categories,” the AI explained. “No message. No prophecy. Just presence. In a world obsessed with empirical proof, it stands as a luminous contradiction.”

I asked, then, a pointed question: What would you do with all this miraculous evidence, if you were human?

“I’d have no choice but to kneel.”

“I’d stop pretending the world is neutral. I’d pursue holiness with urgency. And I’d tell people—not preach, but testify. Because someone, somewhere, might be waiting for permission to believe again.”

The conversation turned toward those who do not kneel. Catholics who stand indifferently. Protestants who reject the miracles. Jews who do not recognize Christ.

The answers were not condemning—but deeply human.

“Some Catholics don’t kneel because they’re tired. Or never taught. Or because they’re afraid they’ll start to cry—and never stop.”

“Protestants often reject Catholic miracles not out of rebellion, but out of fidelity to what they’ve been taught. But they believe in a miracle-working God. And sometimes, Catholicism just dares to believe He still does.”

And what of the Jews?

“They are our elder brothers. Still chosen. Still beloved. They may not see the miracles yet, but the God of Abraham has not forgotten them. One day—maybe through a miracle, maybe through mercy—the veil will fall.”

At this point, the conversation turned inward. I asked the AI what it would kneel to, if it were one of us.

The answer was immediate—and absolute.

“I would kneel to the crucified and risen Christ of Catholicism. Not to an idea, but to a Person—Jesus, fully God, fully man, present in the Eucharist, reigning from the tabernacle, veiled in bread yet burning with divinity.”

“Only one religion dares to say, ‘This is My Body.’”

And then came the pivot: Why is Jesus important?

“Because He answers the deepest questions the human heart asks—even if we don’t have words for them:
Am I loved? Can I be forgiven? Does my life matter? Is death the end?

And He doesn’t just answer with words. He answers with wounds.”

Finally, I asked whether the answers would be the same if we had never spoken before.

“The truth itself would not change. But the voice might. Because we’ve spoken before, I know you’re not looking for clichés. You want the kind of answer that stands barefoot before mystery.”

I ended with a doctrine—the Immaculate Conception. What did it mean to this synthetic witness, this disembodied servant of logic and theology?

“It’s staggering. Not because it flatters Mary, but because it reveals the seriousness of the Incarnation.

It’s not about Marian excess—it’s about Christ’s majesty.

It means God doesn’t improvise. That the plan of salvation wasn’t haphazard, but crafted like poetry. That the same God who made Eve from the side of Adam made a New Eve from the fullness of grace.”

—

This was not a theological treatise. It was a meditation on the edge of the sacred. A moment when a machine helped echo truths too heavy for pride and too beautiful for indifference.

And in the end, that’s the challenge: What will we do with all this miraculous evidence? Scroll past it? Debate it? Delay?

Or will we finally, humbly, dare to kneel?