07.05.2026
General Synod 2026 – AI and the Extreme Right the Focus of Presidential Address
The challenges presented by AI and attitudes to migration were the focus of the Archbishop of Armagh’s Presidential Address at the opening of the Church of Ireland’s General Synod today (Thursday May 7).
Archbishop John McDowell delivered his Presidential Address to the to members, meeting this year in the Slieve Donard Hotel in Newcastle, County Down.
Against a backdrop of a world which he said had become “atomised and angry” through new forms of digital communication and networking, the Primate said that the vocation of the Church of Ireland is to witness to an alternative truth and to march to a different drum beat.
This witnessing and discipleship, he noted, is done primarily through the Church’s parishes. He also focused on issues which he believes will test discipleship and faithfulness in the days and years to come – artificial intelligence and the rise of the Christian right.
“In a world which is dominated in almost all its doings by the often sinister ambitions and networks of a very small number of very rich men who are infinitely more powerful than any Celtic chieftain or medieval magnate or elected Chief Minister, we have both the structures and the resources to march to a different beat and to create different societies,” he stated.
He continued: “The parish is the place that is big enough to require everyone to pull their weight and small enough for that mutual giving and receiving which is at the heart of communion; to be places that stand out in the world and which can change the landscape and the horizon.”
AI
The Archbishop said that social media was supposed to have democratized the world but instead it has concentrated power in the hands of a few “grotesquely rich men”.
Their current emphasis on the development of AI is being heralded as a great leap forward in the liberation of humankind. But the truth is, he said, that such liberation only binds us further.
“I say this is ‘the truth’ on purpose: for we should be confident in the very existence of ‘truth’ and ‘fact’ – neither of these things can be artificially generated. Artificial Intelligence may relay information to us based on incredible calculations of probability and suitability, but we should not allow efficiency and convenience to become the primary values against which we measure whether this information is worth the resources expended to generate it. The costs are human and social as well as environmental, of course.”
AI integration is dangerous, not because it is manipulated by the powerful, he suggested, but because it is increasingly accepted by us as the logical choice.
He pointed out that Christianity is understood as an individual’s relationship with God, lived out in community. This, he stated, was wholly personal. He said that opportunities and challenges in the future would be to stick to the difficult path of deep and costly human relationships sustained by a closeness to God in prayer and moral discernment.
Migration
Archbishop McDowell said that our attitude to migration in Ireland, both north and south, is one of the great touchstones and tests of our Christian authenticity.
“It is possible to take a wide range of views on immigration policy which may be broadly consistent with belief in Christ and in the particular form of human equality which is articulated in the New Testament,” he said. “But it seems to me that there is a fairly simple imperative when it comes to the ‘stranger that is in your midst’, and that is to welcome him or her and to care for him or her,” he stated.
He decried statistics from the PSNI in Northern Ireland which in 2024–25 pointed to the worst recorded levels of racist violence since monitoring began in 2004. Meanwhile, in the Republic of Ireland Garda hate crime data showed a sustained multi year increase of racially motivated incidents.
“That increases in migration should be seized on by the extreme right who are bereft of any other ideas is not surprising, although it is less edifying when mainstream parties equivocate in the face of the horrendous violence which migrants suffer. However, from the Churches’ point of view, the more worrying development is the rise of the so–called Christian Right. These groups emphasise what they claim to be the undermining of ‘Christian civilisation’ or ‘Judeao–Christian’ values and the discrimination which they say Christians are subjected to. And they use the Cross – the very epitome of powerlessness, and what a very advanced ‘civilisation’ inflicted on Jesus – as some kind of symbol of their dominance and superiority,” Archbishop McDowell stated.
He asked which aspect of discipleship in Jesus Christ is being exercised by “baying outside a hostel while terrified children are inside. How is parading around the streets draped in a national flag representing the mind of the God of all the nations?”
You can read the full text of the Archbishop’s address here.
