How Truthly thinks about technology, from within the Church's intellectual and moral tradition.
Why this page exists
Truthly is a Catholic technology company. Our convictions about the human person, about truth, and about the right ordering of tools to human ends are drawn from the Church's tradition — and we build our products accordingly.
This page lays out the questions and principles that guide our work. What does the Church actually teach about technology? Where does AI fit within that teaching? How should a Catholic discern whether and how to use this technology? And what does it mean, concretely, to build AI tools from within the Catholic tradition?
If you are skeptical of AI, we hope this page meets your skepticism with seriousness and shows you that we, too, are skeptical. If you are sympathetic, we hope it gives you a framework for deeper understanding. Either way, our aim is the same: to make the case that this work is worth doing and to explain how we are doing it.
What the Church actually teaches about technology
The Catholic Church has never condemned technology. Not the printing press. Not the railroad. Not the radio. Not the internet. In two thousand years of facing new tools, the Church has consistently distinguished between the tool itself — which is a product of human ingenuity made by creatures who themselves are made in the image of a Creator — and the use of that tool, wherein lives humanity's moral responsibility.
This is not a recent or accommodating posture. It is a deeply traditional one, rooted in the principle that the goods of creation are ordered toward the human person and that human ingenuity is itself a participation in God's creative work.
The Second Vatican Council
In Gaudium et Spes, the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, the Council Fathers directly addressed the question of whether human technical achievement is at odds with God's design. Their answer was unambiguous:
Throughout the course of the centuries, men have labored to better the circumstances of their lives through a monumental amount of individual and collective effort. To believers, this point is settled: considered in itself, this human activity accords with God's will. For man, created to God's image, received a mandate to subject to himself the earth and all it contains, and to govern the world with justice and holiness.… Thus, far from thinking that works produced by man's own talent and energy are in opposition to God's power, and that the rational creature exists as a kind of rival to the Creator, Christians are convinced that the triumphs of the human race are a sign of God's grace and the flowering of His own mysterious design. (§34)
Human work — including the work of building tools, including technology — is not in competition with God. It is part of our human vocation as given by God.
Pope Benedict XVI
In Caritas in Veritate, Benedict XVI offered one of the most direct affirmations of technology in recent times:
Technology — it is worth emphasizing — is a profoundly human reality, linked to the autonomy and freedom of man. In technology we express and confirm the hegemony of the spirit over matter.… Technology enables us to exercise dominion over matter, to reduce risks, to save labour, to improve our conditions of life. It touches the heart of the vocation of human labour: in technology, seen as the product of his genius, man recognizes himself and forges his own humanity. (§69)
This is not a grudging permission. It is an affirmation. Technology is a "profoundly human reality." It is how the human spirit exercises its proper authority over the material world, conferred by God to man in Genesis. It is the place where man "recognizes himself."
Pope Benedict was clear-eyed about technology's dangers — much of the same encyclical addresses them — but his starting point was unmistakable: rightly used, technology is good, and good in a specifically human way.
Antiqua et Nova (2025)
In January 2025, the Vatican's Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Dicastery for Culture and Education jointly issued Antiqua et Nova, a major Note on the relationship between artificial intelligence and human intelligence. It is, at present, the most authoritative magisterial document specifically on AI. Its teaching is direct:
Like any product of human creativity, AI can be directed toward positive or negative ends. When used in ways that respect human dignity and promote the well-being of individuals and communities, it can contribute positively to the human vocation. (§40)
And:
From this perspective of wisdom, believers will be able to … use this technology to promote an authentic vision of the human person and society. This should be done with the understanding that technological progress is part of God's plan for creation. (§117)
The document does not endorse AI uncritically — much of its length is given over to warning against specific misuses — but its fundamental posture is the Church's traditional one: prudent engagement, ordered toward the good of the human person.
Pope Leo XIV
Pope Leo XIV's initial statements on AI have followed the same pattern.
In a message he sent to the 2025 Builders AI Forum in Rome, which Truthly attended, Pope Leo highlighted the divine call to steward technology:
Artificial intelligence, like all human invention, springs from the creative capacity that God has entrusted to us. This means that technological innovation can be a form of participation in the divine act of creation.
Pope Leo encouraged those who are working to use technology for good:
I express gratitude to … all who, through research, entrepreneurship and pastoral vision, seek to ensure that emerging technologies remain oriented toward the dignity of the human person and the common good.
Magnifica Humanitas (2026)
On May 25, 2026, Pope Leo will release his first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas — "Magnificent Humanity" — on the protection of the human person in the age of artificial intelligence. He signed it on May 15th, exactly 135 years to the day after Pope Leo XIII signed Rerum Novarum, the foundational document of modern Catholic social teaching, which addressed the moral questions of the Industrial Revolution.
The parallel is intentional. Pope Leo sees AI as this generation's industrial revolution — a technological shift of comparable magnitude, demanding comparably serious moral engagement. And the response he is modeling is not retreat. The encyclical will be launched at the Vatican alongside the co-founder of a major AI lab, with senior cardinals presenting it. The highest levels of the Church are engaging this technology, in person, with the people building it.
That tells you something. The Catholic response to AI is not flight. It is engagement.
The principle behind the teaching
There is a Latin phrase from the moral tradition: abusus non tollit usum. The abuse of a thing does not negate its proper use.
A hammer can build a cathedral or break a window. A printing press can produce a Bible or pornography. The Internet can host the Summa Theologiae or every imaginable evil. The tool itself is not the locus of morality. The use of it is. And the user — the human person, made in God's image, endowed with intellect and will — is the one who bears moral responsibility for that use.
Antiqua et Nova states this principle directly:
It is unworthy to transfer responsibility from man to a machine. Only the human person can be morally responsible. (§111)
This is worth sitting with, because it cuts in both directions.
On the one hand, it means we cannot exonerate ourselves by blaming our tools. If we use AI in ways that make us less attentive, less prayerful, less present to the people God has placed in front of us, the moral failure is ours — not the technology. We are and will always be free agents.
On the other hand, it means we cannot demonize technology as a way of avoiding the harder work of personal discernment. To say "AI is the problem" can be a way of refusing to examine our own use, our own habits, our own loves, our own prejudices. The Catholic tradition does not let us off that hook.
The question, then, is never, "Is this technology good or evil?" — this is the wrong approach. More importantly, Catholics are compelled to ask: in what ways can this tool be used for human flourishing, and am I using it accordingly?
Avoiding false dichotomies
A particular argument sometimes circulates online: that AI use is incompatible with a life well lived, that the responsible position is abstention.
The pattern relies, almost without exception, on false dichotomies.
Either you read deeply or you use AI. Either you think critically or you depend on technology. Either you preserve human relationships or you engage these tools. Either you steward creation or you participate in an industry with environmental costs.
The Catholic tradition rejects binary thinking. Our best thinkers describe the Catholic position as "both/and," not "either/or." The Catholic mind holds together truths that appear to be in tension: faith and reason, grace and nature, Scripture and Tradition, soul and body, technological innovation and human dignity.
A prudent Catholic can do all of the following at once: read deeply and use AI for what it does well, think critically and use a tool that retrieves information faster than scrolling through articles, preserve human relationships and use a technology that, when used well, saves time that can be spent with loved ones.
The dichotomies are the fallacy. And the cultural mood that produces them — a mood of suspicion, of retreat, of treating the current era itself as the enemy — is not Catholic teaching. It is a particular cultural posture, sometimes dressed up in Catholic language, but distinguishable from what the Church actually says.
The other side is equally true — no Catholic is required to use AI. Each person's technology use should be discerned carefully and prayerfully, using the treasury of the Church's teaching as their guide.
We can disagree about how to use AI well. We can disagree about specific products. But we should be clear: there is no Catholic teaching that requires abstention from this technology. Rather the magisterial documents point to its wise use, if and when it is engaged.
Every technology has risks
This does not mean AI is without serious risks. It comes with them, like all technology. And the responsible Catholic must take those risks seriously rather than dismiss them.
Neil Postman, in Amusing Ourselves to Death, argued that television collapsed American public discourse from rational argument into entertainment — that the medium reshaped what a culture could think. Nicholas Carr, in The Shallows, showed that the internet is rewiring our neural pathways, training us to skim and scan rather than read deeply and contemplate. Jonathan Haidt, in The Anxious Generation, has documented the devastation that smartphones and social media have caused to the first generation that grew up with them.
These critiques are serious. Yet none of them led the Church to abandon television, the internet, or social media. All transformative technology in human history comes with real risks. The Catholic response has always been the same: not retreat, but prudent and virtuous use.
Cars kill tens of thousands of Americans every year. The electrical grid reshapes ecosystems. Industrial agriculture has costs we are only beginning to understand. To single out AI as the technology with risks — and therefore the technology requiring abstention — is not intellectually consistent. It is reactive fear.
This is especially relevant for environmental concerns. AI uses energy. So does every other technology you and we already use, often at far greater scale. A balanced Catholic stewardship of creation means working to reduce the energy footprint of all technology, holding companies (including AI companies) accountable for their costs, and choosing tools whose benefits are proportionate to their costs — not pretending that AI is uniquely environmentally guilty while we drive cars, run air conditioning, and stream video.
The Church's call to stewardship is real and binding. It is not a call to retreat from the modern world. It is a call to live in the modern world with integrity, prudence, and care for what God has given us. Our goal is to participate intimately in the AI space so that we can lead others in responding to this call. This is done most effectively as peers setting an example, rather than critics arguing from the sidelines.
Where most of us actually are
There is a deeper context for this conversation that needs to be named.
Most Catholics today have not been well-catechized. That is not a judgment of anyone in particular; it is simply the situation of the Church after several generations of formation crisis. Most Catholics do not know the answer to a serious question about the faith — about the moral life, about Scripture, about the sacraments — and many do not know who to ask, or where to look, or whose answers to trust.
And the moments when these questions arise are often the worst moments to track down and consult a theology textbook. A friend asks you something real over coffee. Your child asks you something you should be able to answer. You are in the middle of an argument with someone you love about whether the Church teaches what they think it teaches. These are pastoral moments that demand fast, faithful, and accurate help.
For a long time, the only practical options have been: (a) say "I don't know, let me get back to you," and lose the moment; (b) scroll Google and hope you can sort the trustworthy results from the noise; or (c) guess, and risk teaching something false.
A trustworthy AI tool grounded in the actual teachings of the Church gives a fourth option. It does not replace the priest, the catechism, or the deep theological reading that Catholics should already be doing. Tools, like Truthly, supplement them, in the specific moments when those other resources are impractical or out of reach. And it does so by giving you back the time and attention that scrolling through search results would otherwise consume. Truthly allows you to keep your eyes on the person in front of you, the prayer you are in the middle of, the family at the dinner table.
The logic is simple. It is good to know the truth. It is good to know the truth faster. If AI helps you know the truth faster, that is a good thing. Clarity brings conviction, and convicted Catholics will change the world.
The deeper case: the Genesis principle
Step back for a moment. Why does any of this matter?
The Catholic understanding of the world begins in Genesis. God creates. He calls what He has made good. He gives the human person dominion — not domination, but stewardship — over creation. And He gives a mandate: be fruitful, multiply, cultivate.
That mandate did not expire at the gates of Eden. The Fall introduces sin, suffering, and the misuse of every good thing — but the mandate to cultivate, to make, to bring forth, to consecrate, remains. It is part of what it means to be human.
Every technology is, in this sense, an expression of the Genesis mandate. The plow, the printing press, the antibiotic, the algorithm — these are ways that human beings, made in God's image, exercise the creative authority entrusted to them. They can be misused. And they often are misused because the world is fallen. But the Catholic response to a disordered world has never been retreat. It has been engagement, cultivation, redemption.
The pattern repeats. A new technology emerges. It is misused. Catholics could retreat, or they could enter — and consecrate it. Make it serve the truth. Make it serve the human person. Make it serve Christ.
That is the work. And it is the work AI now requires.
This is not a time for fewer Catholics in technology. It is a time for more. If the Church abandons AI to people who do not understand the truth of the human person, we should not be surprised when AI is built in ways that do not respect the human person. Someone is going to build this technology. The question is whether Catholics will be among the builders.
We believe we should be. And we believe the Church, in Antiqua et Nova and in the upcoming Magnifica Humanitas, is pointing in exactly this direction.
Personal discernment
A final word, especially for the reader who is still uncertain.
Nothing on this page is an argument that you, personally, must use AI. The Church does not teach that you must. We do not believe that you must. AI is a tool, and like every tool, the question of whether you should use it is a question of personal, prayerful discernment.
The Catholic method here is the same one Christ gave us: judge by the fruits. If using AI is helping you know and live the faith more deeply — use it. If it is making you distracted, dependent, or shallow — stop. That is true of AI, and it is true of every technology you have ever encountered.
We are confident that, for many Catholics, a well-built Catholic AI tool can bear good fruit. That is why we are building one. But we are not asking you to take our word for it. We are asking you to think carefully, pray honestly, and judge by the actual effects of the tool in your actual life.
That is the Catholic tradition. That is the standard we hold ourselves to. And that is the conversation we're helping to lead.
If you have questions, criticisms, or want to engage with this work more deeply, we welcome it. Feel free to reach out here. We believe this work is better when done in the open and in conversation.
— Zac Johnson, Co-Founder, Truthly