The author, and the intent

This framework was developed to help organizations deploy AI in ways consistent with their missions. It was written inside a Jesuit university, and it synthesizes Catholic Social Teaching with the Rome Call for AI Ethics, read through the Ignatian tradition of discernment, to provide practical guidance for decision-making.

The invitation is wider than the tradition. Catholic Social Teaching claims its principles hold a universality of meaning, and the Rome Call itself was signed by Microsoft, IBM, and the FAO alongside the Pontifical Academy for Life. Anyone building or adopting an AI system, at any institution or none, is welcome to use the rubric and the workshop. You do not need to share the tradition to use the method. The questions it asks, who benefits first, who bears the risk, what happens when it fails, are human questions.

The framework creates no new doctrine. It arranges what the Church already teaches into a form that committees, IT departments, and mission officers can act on. Its materials are the permanent principles of the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, the six principles of the Rome Call, and the recent magisterium on artificial intelligence from Antiqua et Nova to Magnifica Humanitas. Its method is what makes it Jesuit. It relies on discernment, cura personalis, the magis, and the Society's Universal Apostolic Preferences, the working priorities of the university where it was written.

The framework is also maintained as a versioned document, separate from this site. Version 1.3 is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license, so any organization can adapt it with attribution, and this site serves as its reference implementation, one of possibly many. The framework is offered as a conversation starter. The long-term hope is that a community, not one author, carries it forward.

This site was built with AI assistance under human direction, and the framework itself requires us to disclose and examine that fact. The full disclosure, the verification record, and the site's examination by its own rubric are in the colophon.

Corrections and suggestions are welcome, particularly regarding the accuracy of citations to primary sources.

This is an independent scholarly project of the author. It is not an official work or statement of Gonzaga University, of any association, or of any Church body, and it speaks for no one but its author. It creates no new doctrine and claims no authority beyond the primary sources it cites.