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 tools accordingly.
This page lays out the questions and principles that guide our work. What does the Church 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?
In May 2026, Pope Leo XIV released Magnifica Humanitas, his first encyclical, on safeguarding the human person in the age of AI. It is the most substantial magisterial document on AI to date. It names dangers, calls for vigilance, asks for deliberate discernment, and gives reasons for hope. This page explains how the encyclical shapes the work Truthly is doing.
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 explain what it means to build a Catholic AI tool faithfully, and to make the case that this work — done with vigilance, and done well — is worth doing.
A note before we begin
All of us have feelings when it comes to this technology. Some of us are excited about what it makes possible, and have already experienced good fruits from using it. Others feel anger — at how the technology is being misused, at how saturated with technology our lives already are, at the wounds we and our children carry from a decade of poorly designed digital tools that were adopted too quickly. These feelings are real, and they are often justified.
Pope Leo asks us to do something hard with these feelings. He asks us to set them aside long enough to look at this question objectively, in principled and charitable language, and to discern together what the path forward should be — to avoid both "naïve enthusiasms" and "unfounded fears." (MH ¶ 14.)
That is what this page tries to do. We hope it invites others into a conversation marked as much by charity as rigor.
What the Church 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 distinguished between the tool itself — a product of human ingenuity made by creatures who themselves are made in the image of a Creator — and the use of that tool, where questions of moral responsibility arise.
But digital tools have introduced a second moral question that earlier technologies didn't raise: not only how a tool is used, but how it was designed — and whether that design promotes authentic human flourishing.
With these two questions in mind, Pope Leo lays out, in simple terms, the Church's overall view of technology:
Christian humanism does not reject science or technology, but embraces them with gratitude and realism, and grounds them within a higher vocation. (MH ¶ 129)
The Church provides a vision for science and technology. She explains why technology is important and how it should be used.
The Church is the guardian of human dignity. From Rerum Novarum on, the social tradition has insisted that harm follows when technological power outpaces moral discernment. Magnifica Humanitas stands in that tradition. It does not begin by asking whether technology is good or evil. It begins by asking what we are building with it: a Tower of Babel that excludes God and reduces the human person to data and performance, or a city like the Jerusalem rebuilt by Nehemiah, where shared responsibility preserves the dignity of every person. Both, the encyclical insists, are real possibilities right now.
The Church has always stood at the crossroads of human innovation and human dignity. Her response in every era has been the same in form, though the content changes with the technology: discern carefully, denounce what dehumanizes, and consecrate what can serve real human flourishing.
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 — need not compete with God. With the right vision, it aligns with our God-given vocation.
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."
Benedict was also clear-eyed about the risks. The same encyclical that affirms technology as a profoundly human reality also warns that technological development can give rise to the illusion that technology is self-sufficient — that we have addressed the "how" questions and need not address the "why." (Ibid. ¶ 70.) Pope Leo has made those "why" questions the center of the conversation.
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 Note on the relationship between AI and human intelligence. Until Magnifica Humanitas, it was 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 act as moral agents capable of using 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 — an activity that we are called to order toward the Paschal Mystery of Jesus Christ, in the continual search for the True and the Good. (¶ 117)
The note does not endorse AI uncritically. Its warnings are not asides; they are the document's center of gravity. It cautions against treating AI as analogous to human intelligence, against becoming overly dependent on technology, against the erosion of human relationships through simulated connection, against the use of AI in warfare, and against the concentration of AI power in the hands of a few. Magnifica Humanitas takes up each of these and treats them not as edge cases but as the central moral terrain.
Magnifica Humanitas (2026)
On May 15, 2026 — exactly 135 years to the day after Pope Leo XIII signed Rerum Novarum — Pope Leo XIV signed his first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, on safeguarding the human person in the age of AI. The parallel to Rerum Novarum is the encyclical's organizing claim: AI is to our generation what industrialization was to Leo XIII's, a transformation of comparable depth, demanding comparable seriousness.
The encyclical does not tell us to embrace AI, and it does not tell us to abstain. What it does is harder. It asks us to choose a vision for our future. It poses the question through two biblical images: the Tower of Babel, built on pride, self-sufficiency, and the homogenization of human difference into a single language of efficiency; and the rebuilding of Jerusalem under Nehemiah, undertaken slowly, in shared responsibility, with God at the center. The choice, Pope Leo insists, is ours to make right now.
The encyclical describes what Babel would look like. Its warnings are serious. It warns against the concentration of power in a small number of private actors, against the use of AI in warfare, against the erosion of both work and the dignity of workers, against the simulation of human relationship in ways that slowly displace it, against the data-extraction economy that treats personal lives as raw material, and against a technocratic paradigm that measures everything, even human life, by the logic of efficiency, control, and profit. It calls explicitly for "prudence, rigorous evaluation and even, at times, a slower pace in adopting AI" (¶ 106) — not as opposition to progress, but as responsible care for the human family.
Pope Leo's heart, throughout, is the heart of a father and a shepherd. He warns loudly against danger and abuse. He shows where we could end up if we are not careful. And he asks us to press the brakes before we get there.
Read in full, the encyclical is largely a treatment of the ways AI should not be used and the dangers that must be guarded against. Pope Leo does not, by and large, attempt to specify what constructive use of AI would look like. That work, he says, belongs to the builders.
The encyclical's master image is a construction site. It describes the spirituality of the "wise architect" called to build for the common good, to build Jerusalem. The Pope is explicit about who those builders are:
In this era of digital transformation, I see in [Nehemiah] a striking parable of our own vocation, which is not to be passive spectators of social and cultural fractures, nor mere commentators on what is crumbling, but men and women prepared to enter the construction sites of history — research laboratories, technology companies, schools, the media, institutions and local communities — in order to rebuild what has collapsed and protect what is threatened. (¶ 241)
The encyclical names the materials, sets out the dignity of the human person as the standard, and then puts the trowel in our hands:
All are given their own section of the wall: scientists and researchers, entrepreneurs and workers, educators and legislators, civil society, popular movements and faith communities. This is the logic of subsidiarity, which values the cooperation between generations, peoples, disciplines and cultures as the best way for fostering stability, prosperity and peace. We should not be intimidated by tensions or differences because they can become creative forces when guided by shared responsibility. (¶ 13)
In line with the tradition preceding him, Pope Leo emphasizes that technology is not in itself opposed to humanity:
Technology should not be considered, in itself, as a force antagonistic to humanity. On the contrary, it has formed part of our history since the beginning as "a profoundly human reality, linked to the autonomy and freedom of man." Over the centuries, technological development has significantly improved the living conditions of humanity. (¶ 4)
Scientific discoveries are talents entrusted to humanity so that they may bear fruit (cf. Mt 25:14-30). Technology has the power to heal, connect, educate and protect our common home. (¶ 9)
If … technology is integrated with a wise perspective, it can become an instrument of growth, justice and fraternity. (¶ 180)
What matters is the vision we're building toward:
The primary choice is not between a "yes" or "no" to technology, but rather between constructing Babel or rebuilding Jerusalem. (¶ 9)
The true alternative is not between enthusiasm and fear, but between two paths of development: a progress that serves individuals and peoples, or a progress that subjects them to the mentality of power. (¶ 129)
The history of Rerum Novarum is instructive here. When Leo XIII wrote in 1891, the Industrial Revolution had already arrived, and the question was no longer whether to industrialize but how. Profit alone had become the driving force of the new factories, with humanity as collateral damage — low wages, brutal working conditions, families bearing the brunt. Leo XIII's answer was not to retreat from industrialization. It was to insist on the dignity of the worker, to call for the protection of families, and to articulate a vision of work that placed the human person at the center.
We are watching the same dynamic unfold in the digital revolution. Pope Leo XIV writes that "more than ever, in the age of AI and robotics, it is no longer possible to rely solely on the 'invisible hand' of the market." (¶ 163.) When profit is the sole driving force of AI development, humanity again becomes collateral damage. Without a moral framework, AI will do exactly what unbridled industrialization did: enrich the few while dehumanizing the many.
This is why Pope Leo addresses an appeal to "those who develop artificial intelligence" (¶ 111) and calls them to a particular ethical and spiritual responsibility. And it is why we believe a Catholic technology company is the kind of actor that needs to be at the construction site.
Pope Leo names technology companies among the builders. That is the call Truthly is responding to.
It comes down to vision
If there is a single sentence in Magnifica Humanitas that captures its message, it is this:
From the perspective of the Church's Social Doctrine, the key issue is not the use of technology as such, but the vision that underlies it. (¶ 117)
This is the heart of the encyclical. It is why Pope Leo repeatedly returns to the choice between building Babel or Jerusalem. And it is the heart of Truthly's work.
Pope Leo describes AI as "a valuable tool that requires vigilance" — capable of serving integral human development, but also capable of causing harm. (¶¶ 93, 100.) The difference, he says, lies in the vision shaping its design and use:
Technological progress — valuable in itself — requires careful discernment of the anthropological vision that guides it and the ends it pursues. (¶ 94)
It is one thing to integrate technology within a human-centered, relational vision; it is quite another to be guided by an outlook that devalues human limits and promises a purely technical form of "salvation." (¶ 117)
Pope Leo's test for AI, quoting Pope St. John Paul II, is direct: "does AI 'make human life on earth "more human" in every aspect of that life? Does it make it more worthy of man?'" (¶ 129.) When the answer is yes, AI becomes "an opportunity to be embraced responsibly, on a path of patient, shared reconstruction, akin to the rebuilding of Jerusalem narrated in the Book of Nehemiah." (Ibid.) If, however, "power grows while the heart withers and human bonds fray," then "we are faced with a new form of Babel — a construction that is grandiose, yet fundamentally dehumanizing." (Ibid.)
The choice between Babel or Jerusalem comes down to this: Does our vision for AI make us less human, or more?
Two moral questions, not one
Pope Leo's test for AI does not apply only to its use. It also applies to a system's design. He devotes a paragraph to explaining this point:
We cannot consider AI to be morally neutral. In reality, every technical tool embodies choices and priorities through what it measures, ignores and optimizes, and how it classifies people and situations. If a system is designed or used in a way that treats some lives as less worthy, or excludes them without the possibility of appeal, then it is not merely a tool "to be used well," since it has already introduced criteria that contradict the inalienable dignity of the human person. For this reason, ethical discernment cannot be limited to asking whether we are using a system for good or bad purposes; it must also examine how that system is designed and what vision of the human person and society is embedded in the data and models that guide it. (¶ 104)
This is something new in the moral analysis of technology, and it deserves careful attention.
For most of history, the moral analysis of technology had to answer one question: is the tool being used well? It would have been silly to ask whether a hammer was designed morally. Its design is morally irrelevant; only its use carries moral weight.
Modern digital technology has changed this. Algorithms, social platforms, smartphones, and AI systems shape the people who use them. Their designs encode assumptions about what matters, what's good for people and society, what to optimize for, what kind of person the user is or should become. Pope Leo put it simply: "Every technology shapes those who use it." (¶ 140.)
This means that the moral analysis of digital tools has to answer two distinct questions, not one:
The question of use. Is the person using this tool in a way that fosters their flourishing and the flourishing of others? We will always be free agents, and our use of any technology — including AI — will always be ours to answer for. As Antiqua et Nova explains, "It is unworthy to transfer responsibility from man to a machine. Only the human person can be morally responsible." (¶ 111.) There is a classical Latin phrase that applies here: 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. The user — the human person, made in God's image, endowed with intellect and will — bears moral responsibility for the use of a tool. The question is: in what ways can this tool be used for human flourishing, and am I using it accordingly?
The question of design. What vision of the human person does this tool embed? What does it measure, and what does it ignore? What does it allow, and what does it forbid? What does it classify as success, and what as failure? What anthropology and philosophy does it teach the user, simply through using it? This is the new question, and modern digital tools are the first technologies for which it has become unavoidable.
Truthly exists because of both of these questions, but especially the second. A person using a major secular AI platform is using a tool whose design is built on a particular anthropology — a relativistic and post-Christian one that largely affirms whatever desire the user expresses, no matter how destructive, because the system is not rooted in any objective standard against which a desire should be judged. Pope Leo names this directly:
Those who command powerful technological and economic resources, along with substantial human capital for intervention, possess significant capabilities for influencing cultural change. Ultimately, they can influence a significant number of people concerning the truth about humanity, the world, the meaning of existence, the family and even God. This is pure power detached from truth, which subtly or overtly imposes what it wishes others to accept as true…. Consequently, people believe that they can construct reality, and that whatever best suits their claims corresponds to what is true. Saint John Paul II reflected on the consequences of this "crisis of truth," going so far as to state that "once the idea of a universal truth about the good, knowable by human reason, is lost, inevitably the notion of conscience also changes." In such a context, universally valid truths, which precede us and which conscience must accept, are no longer recognized. (¶ 133)
This is the mentality reinforced by major secular AI platforms, because this relativistic philosophy is the operating assumption of the cultures and institutions that produced them. These platforms are encoded with this philosophy, for "those who control AI will impose their own moral vision, which will become the invisible infrastructure of these systems." (¶ 107.) Even when a person asks a secular AI for a "Catholic perspective," the tool's design is already working against them — treating Church teaching as one opinion among many, willing to switch to a "different perspective" at any time, still capable of generating damaging or inappropriate content. These platforms' relativistic design "can influence a significant number of people concerning the truth about humanity, the world, the meaning of existence, the family and even God." (¶ 133.) It can lead users to "believe that they can construct reality, and that whatever best suits their claims corresponds to what is true." (Ibid.)
This is why Truthly exists. We reject relativism. We believe that Jesus Christ is the truth (John 14:6), and that He established the Catholic Church to be "the pillar and foundation of truth" (1 Timothy 3:15). A person using Truthly is using a tool designed to faithfully uphold the teachings of the Catholic Church and the truth about authentic human flourishing. The standard against which it measures answers is the truth of the Catholic faith and the truth of the human person.
Pope Leo has addressed developers directly:
In one sense, technological innovation can represent human participation in the divine act of creation. Developers, therefore, bear a particular ethical and spiritual responsibility, for every design choice reflects a vision of humanity. Just as the creator of an artistic or literary work must consider the values it conveys, so developers are called to embed values in their projects with due seriousness: with transparency, responsibility toward affected communities and careful attention to ensuring that what is being cultivated is a genuine good. (¶ 111)
That is the responsibility we have taken on. That is the standard.
What AI cannot do, and why it matters
Pope Leo is clear about the limits of what AI is. It does not undergo experience. It does not have a body. It does not love, work, mature through relationships, or grow through suffering. It does not bear moral responsibility. Its "learning" is statistical adaptation, not the formation of a person through choices, mistakes, forgiveness, and fidelity. (¶ 99.)
This is not a defect to be engineered around. It is what AI is. A tool that imitates certain functions of human intelligence can be useful — Pope Leo notes that AI systems "often surpass human intelligence in speed and computational capacity, offering tangible benefits across many fields." (Ibid.) But it is crucial to remember that this is still just "data processing." (Ibid.)
Our tool does not have a soul. It cannot replace a priest, a catechist, a friend, a spiritual director, or the slow formation that happens over a lifetime of prayer, study, and sacramental grace. What we offer is faster and easier access to true things in moments when access to true things is unevenly distributed and often filtered through systems indifferent to the truth.
Pope Leo writes that "the danger is not so much that a person may believe they are communicating with another person, but rather that they may gradually lose the very desire to form genuine human connections." (¶ 100.) This is a warning we take seriously. That is why Truthly is designed to be a door, not a destination. It can share what the Church teaches, point you toward the sacraments, and help you find real community. But there are moments — in grief, in serious sin, in moments requiring accompaniment and fellowship — when information alone isn't enough, and the only thing that can help is a real person: a priest in a confessional, a counselor in a room, a friend who knows you. When those moments arise, Truthly will direct you off the screen and toward the right person. It is designed for information retrieval. Nothing more, nothing less.
Where most of us actually are
There is a 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 answers to serious questions 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 opportunities to evangelize 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 find the answer quickly while sorting the trustworthy results from the others; or (c) guess, and risk teaching something false. A trustworthy Catholic AI tool gives a fourth option: it can provide the quick response needed to share the truth in a real conversation.
It is not a replacement for the priest, the catechism, or the deep theological reading that Catholics should be doing. It is a door — a place to begin, and then go deeper. Anyone can start here. It is something like using rosary videos on YouTube to start praying: start there, and then go to adoration, go to daily Mass, take it deeper. We are meeting the majority of Catholics, and the majority of those outside the Church, where they actually are: on screens, not reading books, not in regular contact with catechists. We're not meeting them there to keep them there. Like Jesus, we're meeting them there to lead them somewhere better (cf. John 8:3–11).
A trustworthy Catholic AI tool is also one tool in a toolbelt, not the only tool for the job. It is there when you need a quick answer. And it can do something other resources cannot: calibrate answers to a person's reading level, background, and the specific shape of their question. It can offer resources the person didn't know to look for, approaches to a question they hadn't considered, connections between a situation and the broader tradition that might take years to find on their own. For many people, a tool like this will have a role to play in their formation journey. A modest one, but a real one.
This corresponds to the realities Pope Leo describes in Magnifica Humanitas:
In recent years, it has become increasingly evident how rapidly and profoundly digitalization, artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics are transforming our world. (¶ 4)
The spread of global networks, platforms and artificial intelligence systems is changing the way we obtain information, communicate and access services. (¶ 80)
Artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies are already part of our daily lives. (¶ 90)
For families and schools, there is a growing need for new educational awareness and for formation concerning the proper and critical use of digital tools, AI and online commercial and financial platforms. (¶ 137)
By and large, after two generations of transformative digital technology, our attention spans are shattered, our sense of history thinned, our philosophical and theological literacy devastated, our capacity for sustained reading diminished. As emphasized by Fr. A.G. Sertillanges, O.P., "Minds can only communicate through the body." To communicate with uniquely modern minds — both within the Church and outside of it — we must go through their usually overstimulated bodies. Pope Leo asks the Church to consider "the digital world as a new continent to be evangelized, one that requires generous missionaries who are mature in the faith." (MH ¶ 238.) With millions of souls using AI, a Catholic AI tool, built with care, is part of that missionary work.
More than ever, people need a starting place and an easy reference tool. They need a place to begin and then go deeper. That's exactly what Catholic AI can be.
Avoiding false dichotomies
A particular argument sometimes circulates: that AI use is incompatible with a life well lived, that the only responsible position is complete abstention.
That argument relies on a set of 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.
The Catholic tradition rejects this kind of 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. Pope Leo writes that "elevating any single dimension of human existence to an absolute is always a mistake." (MH ¶ 238.)
A prudent Catholic can read deeply and use AI for what it does well, think critically and use a tool that retrieves information faster than scrolling, preserve human relationships and use a technology that, when used well, saves time that can be spent with loved ones.
Still, we share the caution displayed by Pope Leo in Magnifica Humanitas: there are invaluable human goods that can be lost if AI is adopted too hastily or if too much is outsourced to a machine. As the encyclical explains, "We must learn … how to exercise restraint in the use of AI and to protect our young people from the promise of the perfect machine, from that subtle temptation which renders human thought seemingly superfluous precisely when it is most needed." (¶ 140.)
To use AI well, a person must first be clear about means and ends. What is the goal? In intellectual matters, it should be to think critically, to learn deeply, to produce with excellence. That goal determines when and how AI should be used. If AI helps you think more critically — by helping you test or refine ideas; by marshaling data, arguments, or resources for your review; by presenting alternative perspectives; by helping you brainstorm when you feel stuck; or by distilling discrete thoughts into manageable syntheses — that's a good thing. That's when AI can be a means to the end of better thinking. If your use of AI diminishes your critical thinking — by lulling you into a lazy habit of relying on "ready-made answers" (MH ¶ 100) that aren't cross-checked or used as material for deeper contemplation, by doing your homework for you and effectively nullifying your pursuit of education — that's a bad thing. That's when your use of AI is frustrating the end you should be seeking.
When used well, AI is like a research assistant. Or like the Baroque studio where pupils and helpers produced part of a large composition's "first draft," which the master outlined, gave instructions for, and added the finishing touches to.
You ultimately have to do the work and use your brain, but AI can help you do that. It can "provide intelligent support for human activity." (MH ¶ 152.)
AI is a tool. A tool is only as good as the person wielding it. A hammer in the hands of a master carpenter can be used to build a masterpiece. In the hands of a novice, its work will be shoddy. If we leave our faculties underdeveloped, it will show — and AI won't be able to compensate for it. Our goal should always be to cultivate our God-given capacities, to develop the creative and intellectual abilities that make us uniquely human. We should strive for "mature manhood, to the extent of the full stature of Christ" (Ephesians 4:13). When we do, AI can be used to supplement our capacities, not replace or diminish them.
Every technology carries risks
This does not mean AI is without risks. It comes with them, like all transformative technology. And a responsible person must take those risks seriously.
Pope Leo names the broader pattern, identifying the risks posed by digital devices and social media:
Psychological and psychiatric literature has documented with growing insistence how early and unsupervised exposure to digital devices and social media can negatively impact sleep, attention span, control of emotions and relationships, especially during the most vulnerable stages of life, at times with tragic consequences. (¶ 141)
The subtler forms of addiction linked to the "digital attention economy" should not be underestimated, since platforms and services are often designed to capture users' time and attention, exploiting their vulnerabilities and weakening their inner freedom. When business models thrive on human weakness, the person is treated as a means rather than as an end. (¶ 170)
He makes a similar point about cell phones:
Having a personal mobile device at too early an age and using it without adult supervision can exacerbate young people's vulnerabilities, foster addiction and expose them to isolation, bullying and cyberbullying, as well as to pressures to share intimate images or sensitive information. (Ibid.)
This is not specifically about AI. It is about the entire digital environment we are already living in.
The serious cultural critics of digital technology have been making this case for decades. 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. The Catholic response has always been the same: not blanket retreat from television, the internet, social media, or smartphones, but prudent and virtuous use, with the direct refusal of specific harms. Magnifica Humanitas does not depart from that pattern. It does not call for abstention from AI; it calls for discernment, vigilance, and, where necessary, the refusal of specific applications.
AI is the latest in a series of transformative technological innovations. It likely won't be the last. We should approach it the way we should approach all technology: with caution, discernment, and clarity about the benefits to be gained and the harms to avoid.
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.
Magnifica Humanitas describes what AI built without reference to the truth of the human person already looks like. The question is whether Catholics will contribute to building alternatives, or accept the systems built without them.
We believe we should be among the builders. We believe the Church, in Antiqua et Nova and now in Magnifica Humanitas, is pointing in exactly this direction: toward the entry of formed Catholic minds and consciences onto the construction site.
The heart of the question
There is a final point.
The encyclical's most important line, the one Pope Leo delivers as the chapter on AI closes, is this: "The age of AI is no exception: the construction of Babel or the rebuilding of Jerusalem begins within each one of us." (¶ 130.)
Machines do not sin. Algorithms do not sin. People sin. The social and structural injustices that AI is already producing are born from personal choices made by people. Which means any real solution begins not in regulation, and not in better engineering, but in conversion. It must always be "human intelligence, with its conscience and freedom, that guides technical innovations and responsibly determines their use and limits." (MH ¶ 130.)
Navigating the age of AI begins in the confessional. We cannot rectify the digital world if we do not first reconcile our hearts. The disorder out there has its root in disorder in here. Sin is the only problem. Christ is the only solution. Repentance is how the problem is solved. And it starts with each of us.
This is the deepest thing the encyclical asks of us, and it is the critical truth we at Truthly base our work — and our lives — on. Technology can never save anyone. "What saves humanity is the divine love that descends into the most fragile point of our history and renews it from within." (MH ¶ 232.) Jesus alone gives the fullness of life (John 10:10). Other things, like technology, can help you meet Him. But He alone can fulfill the deepest longings of the human heart.
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, if it helps you become more human — 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 people, 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 intentionally, 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 are trying to help 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