Viral Catholic Songwriter Says AI Can Boost Beauty, Truth, and Goodness

Does artificial intelligence enhance or replace human ingenuity? And what is lost when a machine does more of the work?

For Justin West, these questions are central to his work as a catechist.

At the AI-themed Symposium on Transforming Culture this month at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas, he pointed out that if you Google the ancient nickname for the Church, “Peter’s Barque,” the search engine no longer takes you first to explanations of Peter and his boat symbolizing the Church.

Now it takes you to West’s apostolate, which produces catchy Catholic catechetical songs using artificial intelligence tools.

Peter’s Barque is produced by West, a digital marketer by trade — but now his sideline apostolate has reached millions with his messages about apologetics.

West described the moment he realized he could do something extraordinary with AI tools.

“I was trying to make some catchy jingles for a client when I wondered if I could create a song that would teach the faith — and do some apologetics — with these tools.”

The result was his first graphic-art and music video, “Hasn’t Changed a Thing.” Today, 131 videos later, his content has been seen on TikTok more than 1.7 million times — and played on other platforms more than a million more.

“I’m not a musician, nor an artist. I’m a Benedictine College graduate in philosophy and history,” he said. He still lives near the college’s campus with his wife and five children and has served as a catechist for RCIA in the past for the college, and is currently the OCIA director at St. Benedict Parish.

He writes all the words of his songs, but the rest of the work is AI-generated. But, “You can’t just slap Jesus on it and make it good,” he says. “It is true that AI makes it easier than ever to make content — even Catholic/Christian content, but it doesn’t make it good.”

He has grown a dedicated fan base.

Amanda, who posts on YouTube’s at “Our Little Path,” commented on one video: “My kids and I are hooked on your songs!’ There is a Saint for That’ is played daily here. I appreciate that you are honest about how AI is used and you are doing it to point toward God.”

Sandra Vasek, from St. Kieran in Chicago Heights, said, “As a lifelong director of religious education, I love your presentations. What a wonderful, unique way to teach the faith. Trying to figure out how I can incorporate them into my catechetical presentation in this year’s OCIA.”

I know three people who are fans.

My wife recently lost an afternoon listening to Peter’s Barque songs. Her favorite is “Mary’s Other Children,” which is surprisingly both catchy and robust, including Biblical references, citations of Church Fathers and the grammar lesson, “Mary says, ‘How can this be since I do not know man?’ Present tense, Greek, ongoing state. Dumbest question in scripture unless she’s made a vow of virginity.”

My teenage son’s favorite is “Lord, Not Luck,” a pop reel about St. Patrick that begins with a sea shanty along the lines of the viral song “Wellerman” with the lyrics:

“I wasn’t born with clovers, I was dragged across the foam
Stolen from my father’s fields and worked a stranger’s home.”

One of my daughters, a young mom, recommends “Martyrdom of Polycarp,” in the style of Johnny Cash (or Colter Wall). It includes the chorus, “So holster your fear, let the dust settle down. … Caesar can posture, the crowd can hiss. But Christ is the sheriff of the final abyss.”

Truly, there is something for everyone. But not everyone is a fan.

Critics of Justin’s work argue that some of the AI-generated art crosses lines a Catholic artist never would, making saints more “action figure” than “historical figure” and depicting the Blessed Mother in an inappropriately voluptuous way.

West answered that “although that particular criticism is new to me, the overall criticism is fair. … Sometimes AI gets things wrong,” he added. “I’ve rejected plenty of images because they were weird, inappropriate or simply bad. … If something gets through that shouldn’t, that’s ultimately my responsibility, not the machine’s.”

When he presented his work at the Symposium and a participant asked him about the musicians and artists he is not engaging in his work, West answered, “The question for me isn’t whether a machine can replace an artist. It can’t and it shouldn’t. The question is whether I can responsibly use a tool to teach the faith to people I otherwise wouldn’t reach.”

Gauging the loss of community.

Another Symposium participant cited C.S. Lewis’s The Four Loves about what is lost when efficiency takes the place of collaboration. Lewis demonstrated the power of community by describing how, in a group of three friends, if one dies, the loss is greater than “minus one.” Wrote Lewis:

“In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out. By myself I am not large enough to call the whole man into activity; I want other lights than my own to show all his facets. Now that Charles is dead, I shall never again see Ronald’s reaction to a specifically ‘Caroline’ joke. Far from having more of Ronald, having him ‘to myself’ now that Charles is away, I have less of Ronald.”

Likewise, she argued, when one artist takes the place of a collaborative community, isn’t the loss immeasurable?

West agreed that community is vitally important. “There is something genuinely different when creation becomes solitary, and I don’t want to pretend that collaboration doesn’t have a value of its own. But in this particular case, I don’t think a collaborative community has been displaced. Nothing was there before to be displaced.”

This isn’t an instance of a loss but of a gain, he said.

“Peter’s Barque isn’t replacing the band I used to employ or the animators I used to hire,” he said. “Rather, something heretofore unheard of is happening that simply wouldn’t have happened otherwise. And I hope actual musicians see that there is an appetite for this kind of catechetical music and run with it. I’m certainly open to collaborating with them.”

West says Pope Leo XIV left an opening for work like his.

“I think this is where my little experiment with Peter’s Barque intersects directly with Pope Leo’s Magnifica Humanitas,” West said in his defense. “Leo isn’t asking us simply to embrace AI or reject it. He insists on the primacy of the human person — that human intelligence, conscience and freedom must guide the technology and determine its use.”

Diane Jones of Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Lenexa was paired with West in a single colloquium session to speak about the intrinsic connection between beauty and humanity.

She quoted Karol Wojtyla, the future St. John Paul II, in a retreat for artists, saying:

“The human person may not be treated just instrumentally. The human person may not be treated as if he or she were only ‘needed for production’ or even, ‘needed to create culture, to create art.’ No! No function of the human person is more important than the person himself. Most essential is the value of our own humanity.”

When I asked her whether West’s work was beautiful, she said that it was — to the degree that it is human.

Ultimately, says West, he is himself responsible for his content’s worth.

“The machine can generate. It can imitate. It can accelerate. It can give me access to a medium I never had before,” he said. But, “left to its own devices, it really can’t make things which are good and true and beautiful. It might be able to imitate them, but without human input, it definitely can’t make them.”

Find Peter’s Barque at
TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, X, Spotify, and
petersbarquemusic.com

By Tom Hoopes