The Framework
Principles, a lens, and their operational form
The framework rests on the four permanent principles of the Church's social doctrine, identified in the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (2004). It reads them through the Ignatian tradition of discernment. It then shows how the six principles of the Rome Call for AI Ethics (2020) give them operational form for AI systems.
Section I
Catholic Social Teaching foundations
“The permanent principles of the Church's social doctrine constitute the very heart of Catholic social teaching. These are the principles of: the dignity of the human person, which has already been dealt with in the preceding chapter, and which is the foundation of all the other principles and content of the Church's social doctrine; the common good; subsidiarity; and solidarity.”
The Compendium describes these as principles of “a general and fundamental character,” marked by their “permanence in time” and “universality of meaning” (§161), and insists they be taken “in their unity, interrelatedness and articulation” rather than piecemeal (§162). It also names further principles this framework draws on: the universal destination of goods (§§171–184), participation (§§189–191), and, woven throughout, the preferential option for the poor (§182).
A note on “permanent”
“Permanent” can sound like a claim that nothing ever changes. The Church's claim is narrower. The principles are permanent because they derive from the nature of the human person rather than from any social arrangement. What develops is their application, from industrial labor in Rerum Novarum (1891) to ecology in Laudato Si' (2015) to artificial intelligence in the documents this site rests on. The articulation also has a history, and the Church does not hide it. Subsidiarity received its classic formulation in Quadragesimo Anno (1931). Solidarity received its full doctrinal weight in Sollicitudo Rei Socialis (1987). In Newman's terms, doctrine develops without reversing. The truths are held to be perennial, and the Church's naming of them deepens over time.
i.Human Dignity
“the dignity of the human person … is the foundation of all the other principles and content of the Church's social doctrine”
- Every person is created in the image of God.
- AI must never reduce persons to data points: “Fundamental respect for human dignity demands that we refuse to allow the uniqueness of the person to be identified with a set of data” (Antiqua et Nova, ¶94).
- Design decisions must affirm dignity regardless of user circumstances.
ii.Common Good
“the sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to reach their fulfilment more fully and more easily”
- AI should serve the flourishing of all, not just those who can afford it.
- Systems should be evaluated by whether they advance or hinder human flourishing.
iii.Subsidiarity
“all societies of a superior order must adopt attitudes of help (“subsidium”) — therefore of support, promotion, development — with respect to lower-order societies”
- AI should support human decision-making, not replace it.
- Technology serves as a bridge to human connection, not as the destination.
- Complex or emotional situations need clear human handoff protocols.
iv.Solidarity
“a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good”
- Preferential option for the poor: design for the underserved first.
- Systems must be accountable to the communities they serve.
- No extraction of value from vulnerable populations.
Section II
The Ignatian lens
Why call this framework Jesuit rather than simply Catholic? Because principles alone do not decide anything. Catholic Social Teaching tells an institution what to honor. The Ignatian tradition supplies a discipline, practiced for five centuries, for choosing when goods compete. AI adoption is such a choice, with real benefits, real harms, incomplete evidence, and institutional pressure. The content of this framework is Catholic. Its method is Ignatian, and its intended home is Jesuit higher education.
i.DiscernmentA discipline for choosing among goods
AI adoption is rarely a choice between good and evil. It is usually a choice among competing goods under uncertainty and sales pressure, and this is the terrain the Spiritual Exercises were written for. Ignatian discernment insists that decisions be tested against ends rather than moods. The fear of being left behind is not a reason to deploy anything. The Exercises' First Principle and Foundation supplies the framework's underlying logic. Created things are to be used tantum quantum, insofar as they help the end for which we exist, and set aside insofar as they hinder it. Substitute technology for created things and you have the premise of this site.
ii.Cura personalisCare for the whole, particular person
The signature of Jesuit education is attention to each person in his or her concrete circumstances. It is the standard against which users, tickets, and risk scores are judged. A system passes only if it can still see a whole person. Generic AI ethics asks whether the dataset is fair. Cura personalis also asks what happens to a particular student when the chatbot is the only office open.
iii.MagisThe greater good, not the permissible minimum
Compliance frameworks ask whether a deployment is allowed. The magis asks whether it is the greater service, and this is why the rubric grades toward mission rather than pass or fail. A system can satisfy every regulation and still fall short of what the institution exists to do.
iv.Finding God in all thingsEngagement, not retreat
The Ignatian instinct is worldly. The Society of Jesus ran schools, observatories, and printing presses because no instrument of an age is profane in itself. That instinct rules out both naive adoption and reflexive prohibition of AI. Institutions in this tradition engage the technology on the mission's terms, with open eyes.
v.Men and women for othersArrupe's measure of formation
Pedro Arrupe's 1973 address gave Jesuit education its modern watchword, forming men and women for others. It supplies the test for the teaching tools discussed on this site. Does the writing assistant, the tutor, or the advising bot form people for others, or does it only make individual output more efficient?
The Universal Apostolic Preferences, 2019–2029
In 2019, after two years of communal discernment, the Society of Jesus announced four Universal Apostolic Preferences for 2019–2029, confirmed by Pope Francis. They are the Society's current priorities, and each bears on AI deployment.
- To show the way to God through the Spiritual Exercises and discernment
- The rubric and auditor exist to make AI adoption a discerned decision rather than a procurement reflex.
- To walk with the poor, the outcasts of the world, those whose dignity has been violated
- Design for the underserved first, and audit every system for who it excludes and whose data it extracts.
- To accompany young people in the creation of a hope-filled future
- Higher education is this framework's home ground: students are the population most exposed to institutional AI.
- To collaborate in the care of our Common Home
- AI has a material footprint of energy, water, and minerals. Stewardship of creation belongs in every deployment review.
Section III
Rome Call alignment
The Rome Call for AI Ethics was signed on February 28, 2020 by the Pontifical Academy for Life, Microsoft, IBM, FAO, and the Italian Minister for Technological Innovation, and has since been endorsed by Jewish, Islamic, and other religious leaders. It commits signatories to what the document calls “algor-ethics,” the ethical use of AI as defined by six principles. They are quoted below verbatim from the signed document. Each maps onto a foundation in Catholic Social Teaching.
1.Transparency
“in principle, AI systems must be explainable”
CSTHuman dignity requires informed consent and understanding. A person cannot give meaningful consent to a system no one can explain.
2.Inclusion
“the needs of all human beings must be taken into consideration so that everyone can benefit and all individuals can be offered the best possible conditions to express themselves and develop”
CSTThe common good requires that all benefit, especially the vulnerable, not only those who can afford access.
3.Responsibility
“those who design and deploy the use of AI must proceed with responsibility and transparency”
CSTSolidarity requires accountability to the communities a system affects, not only to the institution that deploys it.
4.Impartiality
“do not create or act according to bias, thus safeguarding fairness and human dignity”
CSTHuman dignity demands equal treatment regardless of characteristics. Bias built into a system violates that dignity.
5.Reliability
“AI systems must be able to work reliably”
CSTThe common good requires systems that work for everyone, consistently. Unreliability can fall hardest on those with no alternative.
6.Security and privacy
“AI systems must work securely and respect the privacy of users”
CSTHuman dignity includes the right to privacy and self-determination over one's own information.
Source: Rome Call for AI Ethics, full text. The Rome Call website also presents shortened summary wording of these principles. The quotations above follow the signed document.
Section IV
The magisterium on AI and the human person
In his Message for the 57th World Day of Peace (2024), “Artificial Intelligence and Peace,” Pope Francis addressed AI directly. Its promise cannot be presumed beneficial a priori, and it depends on respect for “such fundamental human values as inclusion, transparency, security, equity, privacy and reliability.” He warned of disinformation, discrimination, surveillance, and digital exclusion.
In Dilexit Nos (2024), an encyclical on the Sacred Heart rather than on technology, Pope Francis supplies the theological grounding for why technology must serve human dignity. It critiques a “liquid” world dominated by consumerism and technology (¶9), and it notes that algorithms cannot capture the depth of human experience and memory (¶20):
“Living as we do in an age of superficiality, rushing frenetically from one thing to another without really knowing why, and ending up as insatiable consumers and slaves to the mechanisms of a market unconcerned about the deeper meaning of our lives, all of us need to rediscover the importance of the heart.”
Antiqua et Nova (January 28, 2025), the joint Note of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Dicastery for Culture and Education, is the Church's most systematic treatment of AI to date, with 118 paragraphs on the relationship between artificial and human intelligence. It holds that “AI should not be seen as an artificial form of human intelligence but as a product of it” (¶35), that “ultimate responsibility for decisions made using AI rests with the human decision-makers” (¶44), and, in the sentence this framework leans on most, that:
“Fundamental respect for human dignity demands that we refuse to allow the uniqueness of the person to be identified with a set of data.”
In Dilexi Te (October 2025), his first apostolic exhortation, begun by Francis and made his own, Pope Leo XIV renews the preferential option for the poor, insisting on “an inseparable bond between our faith and the poor” (¶36). It supplies the warrant for the rubric's first question, who benefits first.
And in Magnifica Humanitas (2026), Pope Leo XIV's first encyclical, signed on May 15, the 135th anniversary of Rerum Novarum, the Church addresses AI, truth, work, and freedom at encyclical length for the first time. It warns against “the pretense that a single language — even a digital one — can translate everything, including the mystery of the person, into data and performance” (¶9). It holds that “technology should not be considered, in itself, as a force antagonistic to humanity” and yet must be “disarmed” of the mentality of domination. It observes that “never has humanity had such power over itself” (¶4):
“In the era of artificial intelligence, when human dignity is threatened by new forms of dehumanization, ours is the pressing duty to remain profoundly human.”