日本語要約

2026年10月11日、ベラルーシ・ヴィテプスク州ノヴォルコムリの聖マグダラのマリア教会で、ミンスク・モギリョフ名誉大司教タデウシュ・コンドルシェヴィチ大司教が、AIの助けを借りて制作された聖カルロ・アクティスの聖画を祝福しました。地元の教会メディアによると、AIを用いて制作された聖画の祝福はベラルーシで初めてです。聖画（140×290センチ）は側祭壇に置かれ、ノートパソコン、ロザリオ、天へ続く「高速道路」などが描かれています。制作者は、AIは下絵や配置の補助に使っただけで作業の5〜10％程度にすぎず、完成まで約1年かかったと語っています。大司教は説教で、この聖画がインターネットを通して聖性へ導く神の真理を見いだす助けとなるよう願いました。

On Sunday, 11 October 2026, Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz, Archbishop Emeritus of Minsk-Mohilev, blessed a new image of St Carlo Acutis at the Church of St Mary Magdalene in Novolukoml, in Belarus’s Vitebsk region. Belarusian Catholic media reported that it is the first image made with the help of artificial intelligence to be blessed in Belarus.

The parish priest, Father Mikalaj Lipski, announced during an online broadcast of Mass that the image had been specially created with AI assistance. According to Katalicki Viesnik (catholicnews.by), the archbishop visited the parish that day to celebrate its patronal feast, which he had been unable to attend in July for health reasons. During the same visit he also blessed a chapel of St Francis of Assisi and a parish garden.

The canvas, styled as a painting and measuring 140 × 290 cm, stands at a side altar and is designed to open and close over the image of the parish’s patron, St Mary Magdalene. It shows the young saint holding a laptop, a sign of his digital evangelisation, and a rosary, recalling his devotion to Our Lady. A golden sun on his chest points to his conviction that the Eucharist was his “highway to heaven”, and a spiral staircase rising behind him becomes a road leading upward.

The image was produced by a prompt engineer, Dzmitry Kulpanovich, working with a designer and a photographer. Kulpanovich told The European Correspondent that AI was used mainly for rough sketches and arranging elements, accounting for only about 5–10% of the work, and that the project took a year. Some faithful have asked online whether an AI-assisted image can be called an icon.

In his homily, Archbishop Kondrusiewicz said people now enter the world through the internet, and expressed the hope that the image of St Carlo would help them find there the truth of God that leads to holiness. Carlo Acutis, who catalogued Eucharistic miracles online and died aged 15 in 2006, was canonised by Pope Leo XIV in 2025.

Note from Evangelii Network Japan: St Carlo Acutis is a patron for many who work in digital ministry. This story raises a question close to our own work on AI: how human authorship, prayer and intention remain at the heart of sacred art when new tools are used.

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