The 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Thoughts from Fr. Ryan
There are a lot of good reasons to be afraid of artificial intelligence and the new proliferation of “AI chat” systems on the Internet. These interfaces, known as LLMs (Large Language Models) aren't really intelligent. They process enormous amounts of information that other people have created and use a clever guessing system to respond to questions and instructions. The underlying technology is genuinely fascinating and far more complicated than you imagine!
For the most part, these are a curiosity that may or may not be really useful in the long haul.
For us as Catholics, there is genuine value to be found in a language model that is "trained" on good catholic information! Take for example the excellent service online at https://catholic.chat
The webpage has three cutesy pictures: one of a child, one of an adult, and one of a scholar. You choose which one represents your education, background and interest level, and ask it literally anything… Do you wanna know what a sacristy is? Are you interested in when the book of Job was written? Do you wanna know why the Protestant Bible is 7 books shorter than ours? Want to write a letter to the Pope and need to know the protocol? Interested in why St Augustine is always getting quoted?
Literally, the questions could go on and on. One could spend hours and hours asking every bizarre question that comes into your mind and this thing will just keep pumping out answers. And they're based on good information! These questions are answered by the writings of the Saints, the catechism, the Bible, the official teaching of the church, and millions of essays, sermons, and articles addressing all manner of Catholic interest.
Fr Roch Koretzsky’s article from Communio Magazine in 1998 is waiting for you deep inside the so-called Artificial Intelligence with a long, complicated answer to Catholic Questions about alien life. Transcripts of all of Archbishop Fulton Sheen’s sermons are there too. As is every word written by St Thomas Aquinas and St Bonaventure. All the great Eastern Fathers are there in the original Greek - autotranslated by the LLM into English. But you can also ask questions about the Greek originals because the system understands the Greek language as well as any native Greek speaker does. A dozen versions of the Bible are there for helpful comparison as is basically every concordance, analysis, and publicly available Bible Study ever written. It’s unimaginable how much information is so readily available.
As with all AI, there is the possibility of "hallucinations". This is where the AI thinks it has a good answer for you, but it's making something up out of thin air! This can seem a little obvious, when it tries to explain to you that Saint Therese of Lisieux walked around with Jesus before the Crucifixion and also made supper for St Augustine and also drove a Nissan Acura… Thankfully, most of the errors have been trimmed out using new “stacked agent” technology. Still, we want to be a little cautious of what info we get from AI. 97% of it will be right on the money. But a bit will be whacky. Generally, shorter questions give better information and more detailed prompts will cause the AI to try harder to find an answer even if no answer exists. If I ask it to find me quotations from Pope John Paul II about Small town football culture, it may well invent something just so it has an answer… AI is designed to be helpful. It always always replies to a question with some version of “yes.” And so we want to check our work when we ask questions that really matter. We can even use other AIs to do the checking…
I personally like Catholic.chat, but I also use Grok.com (xAI) and I run Ollama on my home computer.
AI is a precarious thing. In the long run, it’s probably not good for us and it certainly is not going to be good for our children. But in the short term, it has a lot to give us and so we might as well take advantage.
Mass Intentions for the Coming Week
- Sat 5:30 pm In memory of Pat & Marlie Bullard, Patrick Thomas, and Eva & R L Reynolds/family
- Sun 8:00 am (Traditional Latin Mass) PRO POPULO for the living & deceased members of our parish
- Sun 9:30 am In memory of deceased members of Roy and Johnson families/ S Johnson
- Mon NO MASS
- Tue 9:00 am In memory of Kathleen Mills/Crothers
- Wed 9:00 am In memory of Carol Folk LaHatte/P Lancaster
- Thu 9:00 am In memory of Bryan Stamey/family
- Fri 5:30 pm For special intentions of the Guizeriz family
- Sat 5:30 pm In memory of Donald and Payton Trichell/family
- Sun 9:30 am In memory of deceased members of the Bolton and Howington families/J Howington
**Altar Candles this week are burning for the special intentions of Blanche and Skeeter Wilks **
Assistants at Holy Mass
| Date | Servers | Lector(s) | EMHC(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 9/20 5:30p | - | M Rome | M Ernst |
| 9/21 9:30a | Kathleen, Evelyn, Daniel M | Youth - Courtland | - |
| 9/27 5:30p | - | C VanderVieren | N Ernst |
| 9/28 9:30a | MaryKatherine, Maura, Elizabeth | K Collins | - |
Upcoming Events
- Confessions every Friday & Saturday from 5p until Mass and Sunday from 9a until Mass
- Sunday Morning Catechism in the Hall (with Coffee & Donuts) after the 9:00a Mass during the School Year unless otherwise indicated
- Pastoral Council meeting monthly on the third Wednesday at 6p unless otherwise indicated
- Sept 21 Tax-Free Second Collection for our Retired Priests fund.
For Your Information:
TAX-FREE COLLECTION This weekend, September 21, 2025, our second collection, Retired Priests Fund, will remain in the parish without the usual diocesan assessment/tax. That means 100% of what is given in the second collection will remain here in the Parish. Please be prayerfully generous.
PARISH CENSUS CAN BE FILLED OUT ONLINE This entire month we’re trying to get everyone to fill out a census page. Even if you’re not a parishioner and only come to Mass here on occasion, we’d love to be able to be in touch with you! You can fill out one of the sheets at the back of the Church OR you can go to https://www.saintedwardtallulah.church/census
MAUSOLEUM We have reached the end of our sales period for the Mausoleum. It will, of course, be possible to purchase spaces in the future, Our sales representative, Garth Daniels, can be reached at (318) 295-4409 If you have any questions or you know of anyone else interested in making a purchase, please encourage them to speak with Garth or call the church office.
ROSARY GROUP meets on Monday at 5:30 p.m. to pray the Rosary. Everyone is invited to join in prayer. For more information, contact Louise Magoun (318-341-2403), coordinator.
FORMED.ORG has weekly features at https://watch.formed.org/this-week-on-formed. Remember to sign in using our parish’s zip code (71282) at https://signup.formed.org
Our Return to the Lord
| Weekly Budget FY 2025-2026 | $ 2,500 |
| August Budget | $ 10,000 |
| August Collections | $ 17,705 |
| August Total Expenses | $ 11,647 |
| September Budget | $ 10,000 |
| September 14 collection | $ 2,870 |
| September Collections To Date | $ 7,482 |
Stewardship The dishonest manager in today’s parable knew how to manipulate money to his own advantage. But, the Gospel warns that no one can serve both God and money. Which do I serve? Is my stewardship such that anyone can tell?
SECOND COLLECTION this weekend supports the Retired Priests fund assessed to us by the diocese. See notes elsewhere in the bulletin.
Let us Rejoice in the Lord!
Happy Birthday to Chris Cagnolatti (Sept 21), “Bugs” Brown (Sept 23), Leslye Ellerbee (Sept 25), Bishop Johnson (Sept 26), Blake Sullivan (Sept 26)
Happy Anniversary to Isabell and Sylvester Hernandez (Sept 23), Peggy and Phillip Scurria (Sept 23)
In Our Daily Prayers…
Please let us know of anyone who is ill or hospitalized and would like to receive a visit from Father. Also, help us keep our prayer list up to date by advising us of those who should be added or removed.
For our Pope, Leo XIV, our Bishop, Robert Marshall; and our Diocesan leaders, our President, Governor, Mayor and national, state and local elected representatives
Our parishioners who are sick, shut-in, under full-time care and for those who care for them, and for those otherwise in need of our prayers: MaryKathryn & Nap Book, Connie & Dan Copes, Elizabeth Crothers, Leslye Ellerbee, Susan & Johnny Gilfoil, Margaret & Pat Gilfoil,Terry Farlow Hall, Sidney & Mary Jane Johnson, Frances & Bill Kennedy, Ed Mills, Susie Murphy, Bobby Reynolds, Mike & Sue Rome
Our friends and relatives who need our prayers: Ashley Alexander (Regan), Graham Allen (S Gilfoil), Marie Farlow Bellard, Martha Book, Kay Boolos (S Gilfoil), Dick & Sue Boyd (S Gilfoil), Chris Breard (Gilfoil), Gayle Brown (Dukes and Oliver), Sarah Cannon (Gilfoil), Fran Castile (Keene), Caroline and Albert Christman, Jeannie & Donald Collins, Teresa Carney Condra, Jami Cook (Wilks), Mike Coullard (Oliver), Gene Cox, Marla Evans Cummins, Carol Dipert (Rome), Mac Donaldson (Ellerbee), Mike Farlow, Patty Farlow, Judy Fortenberry, April Franklin (Wilks), Fred and Cathy Fulton, Thom Gilfoil, Wyly Gilfoil (Gilfoil), LaVonne Givens, Charlotte Green, Rita Hargrave, Family/Friends of Cynthia Hicks, Evie Hilburn (Lancaster), Patricia Lively (Wilks), Lonnie Hollowell (Naya), Charles Howington, Callie Halbach Hyams, Will Irby (P Gilfoil), Diane Johnson, John Kurfiss (Watts), Carla Leese (S Gilfoil), LaLa Lopez (Hernandez), Caroline Marcello (Watts), Michelle McGuire(Gilfoil), Kiely McKellar (S Gilfoil), Mona Martin (MA Gilfoil), Boyce Miller,Cole Norris, Randy Parker, Russell and Betty Petersen, David Peterson, John Neill, Bailey, Scott, and Tiffney Rome, Sara and Jess Shields (Keene), Debbie Kedrick Sims, LeeAnn Rome Tranchina (Rome), Randy Watts, Jr.
Our collegiates: Aidan Collins, Preston Collins, Henry Ellerbee, Lilly Falgout, Jag Gilfoil, Matilda Johnson, Caroline Marsh, EmmyLu Marsh, Charlize Richardson, Carter Sullivan, Walker Sullivan, Chandler Wood, Marsh Wood
