Bacolod City, Philippines — Artificial intelligence can help students find information, but it cannot replace a classroom that thinks, listens and loves together, Augustinian priest Fr. Gary N. McCloskey, OSA, told educators at La Consolacion College Bacolod on Oct. 20.
Speaking at LCC Bacolod’s Auditorium to teachers and administrators from Augustinian schools across Negros Occidental, McCloskey urged schools to harness AI without surrendering the human formation at the heart of Augustinian pedagogy. “AI can be good for gathering information,” he said, “but the classroom community is where information is tested, discussed and turned into wisdom.”
The talk, “Understanding Augustinian-Inspired Classroom and School Practices in an Age of AI,” formed the Bacolod leg of the Asia-Pacific Augustinian Conference (APAC) Commission on Education’s three-part seminar series on Augustinian Education in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.
McCloskey framed his message around the Augustinian values of veritas (truth), unitas (community), and caritas (love)—not as abstract nouns, he stressed, but as actions: seeking truth through reflection, forming community, and reaching out in service. “Those actions frame our journey,” he said. “Augustinian pedagogy is not what’s contained in a book; it is what we are doing—together.”
He warned that AI systems can mirror the limits and blind spots of their training data. If datasets are built by narrow or homogenous groups, he said, algorithms may reproduce bias—particularly against groups underrepresented in the data, including Asians and women—unless educators and developers actively audit and correct them. “You have to know deeply what you’re doing,” he said, “because what’s in the database can become a problem.”
Rather than isolating students behind screens, McCloskey called for “co-learning”—a classroom culture where teachers and students interrogate AI outputs together. He likened the approach to a flipped classroom: students use AI to surface definitions, examples and sources at home, then bring those findings into class for collective scrutiny. “Make sure they learn it right the first time,” he said. “If they practice the wrong method alone, you spend the next day unlearning.”
The priest pressed the moral stakes as well. Counseling-by-algorithm might feel convenient, he said, but serious human struggles require genuinely reciprocal listening and care. “No AI will ever love you,” he told the audience. “Use the tool to begin thinking—but finish the work in relationship.”
McCloskey returned repeatedly to a line from St. Augustine—“With you I am a Christian, for you I am a bishop”—to argue that service must begin in solidarity. (The phrase is commonly cited from Augustine’s sermons.) “It’s ‘with’ before ‘for,’” he said. “If I want to do something for the poor, I need to be with them first. Otherwise I will likely do the wrong thing.” That stance, he added, aligns with Catholic social teaching on solidarity and the common good.
He sketched practical marks of an Augustinian classroom amid AI’s rise:
Truth shared in common. “Truth is not private property,” he said. “It is held in common for mutual benefit.”
Kinship over kingship. Classrooms should reduce status gaps and invite equal participation so students gain the confidence to risk mistakes and grow.
Service with, not over. Avoid “savior” postures and shallow volunteerism; pursue immersion that transforms both the server and those served.
McCloskey also encouraged leaders to stay attentive to the world beyond campus. He cited a U.S. college that grew by aligning programs with regional needs—particularly in health care—arguing that Augustinian education must read “the signs of the times” and respond for the sake of students’ lives and livelihoods.
The day’s refrain—seek, form, reach—closed with a return to Augustine’s famous tolle, lege (“take up and read”). AI can help students take up vast stores of knowledge (scientia), McCloskey said; teachers and peers help them interiorize understanding (intellectus) and perfect it in love (caritas). “True instruction,” he said, “is completed by love.”
The seminar was hosted by La Consolacion College Bacolod for educators from Augustinian schools in Negros Occidental as part of APAC’s observance of the Jubilee of the World of Education. Organizers said the series aims to ensure Augustinian education remains responsive, innovative and firmly rooted in its core values—even, and especially, in an AI-driven age.
by Rodjhun Navarro
Photo: Keyzer Gotera/ Miguel Soberano