Catholic Digital Commons Foundation
= The "CDCF's mission is to coordinate community efforts for the common good and contributes to a shared digital patrimony for the Catholic Church." [1]
URL = https://catholicdigitalcommons.org/
Principles
From the bylaws, collated by Marco Fioretti:
"The Bylaws of CDCF state that the foundation is organized exclusively for charitable, educational, and religious purposes which include:
B-1: to coordinate, develop, steward, and disseminate open-source software, data repositories, technical standards, and digital platforms in service of the Catholic Church’s evangelizing mission
B-2: organization, structuring, preservation, and ethical use of ecclesiastical data [of all kinds]
B-3: Academic research coordination, data standards, academic advisory roles, joint initiatives, and educational programming.
B-4: fostering interdisciplinary exchange between theology, pastoral practice, and technology.
B-5: promote the ethical development and governance of digital technologies and artificial intelligence in accordance with Catholic social teaching."
(https://mfioretti.substack.com/p/two-great-software-for-catholics)
The Manifesto
* The Catholic Digital Commons: A Manifesto for the Digital Age
The Moment of Revolutionary Change
We stand at one of the most extraordinary moments in human history. A new digital industrial revolution offers powerful tools – church ministries redesigning their services to communities strengthening relationships with the vulnerable. The Church’s social teaching offers a compelling vision for lifting up human dignity: a digital commons to serve the common good, strengthen families, democratize economic opportunity, inspire new evangelism, and empower human solidity. This revolution offers us new freedom to imagine a bolder, more faithful vision of humanity.
As Pope Leo XIII observed in Rerum Novarum, the vast expansion of pursuits and the marvelous discoveries of science create a momentous gravity that fills the mind with apprehension. The Second Vatican Council foresaw this trajectory: “Technology is now transforming the face of the earth, and is already trying to master outer space” (Gaudium et Spes §5). In our own time, Pope Benedict XVI identified the emergence of a vast new missionary frontier, urging the faithful to take on “the responsibility for the evangelization of this ‘digital continent’” (43rd World Communications Day Message, 2009). The Synod on Synodality has since confirmed that digital culture is “a crucial dimension of the Church’s witness in contemporary culture and an emerging missionary field” (Final Document, 2024, §113).
We recognize that the current technological revolution is a meaningful transformation that influences the social contract underpinning our relationships and environment. We choose to meet this gravity with a bold, inviting, and hopeful vision for the common good.
We need not less technology but more. Or, more accurately, we need stronger, more considered, more human technology. — Romano Guardini, Letters from Lake Como (1927), Letter IX
The Theology of the Commons: Imago Dei and the Human Subject
Our work is grounded in the uncompromising truth of the Imago Dei (cf. Genesis 1:27). We believe that every person is created in the image and likeness of God, a dignity that is uniquely reflected in the human face and voice. As Pope Leo XIV teaches in his 2026 Message for World Communications Day, our unique features reveal an unrepeatable identity and constitute the sacred place of presence and relationship. “The challenge, therefore, is not technological, but anthropological. Safeguarding faces and voices ultimately means safeguarding ourselves” (Pope Leo XIV, 2026 WCD Message).
Furthermore, we uphold the principle established in Laborem Exercens that the human person is the “subject” of work. Technology must be a servant to humanity, never its master. We build against the reduction of the person to a data point or a mere instrument of production. Instead, we lift up the agency and dignity of the human person – enhancing the capacity of individuals, families, and parishes to flourish in their unique vocations. As Antiqua et Nova (2025) affirms, “A person’s worth does not depend on possessing specific skills, cognitive and technological achievements, or individual success, but on the person’s inherent dignity, grounded in being created in the image of God” (§34). The appearance of artificial intelligence on the world stage calls for “a renewed appreciation of all that is human” (Antiqua et Nova §112).
As Pope Francis stated: “The concept of human dignity requires us to recognize and respect the fact that a person’s fundamental value cannot be measured by data alone. We cannot allow algorithms to limit or condition respect for human dignity, or to exclude compassion, mercy, forgiveness, and above all, the hope that people are able to change” (Pope Francis, Address to the participants in the Minerva Dialogues, 27 March 2023).
The human person is ordained directly to God as to its absolute ultimate end. Its direct ordination to God transcends every created common good. — Jacques Maritain, The Person and the Common Good (1947)
The Builder’s Mandate: Vetting and Communalizing
The Catholic Digital Commons is a “builder commons.” Saint Paul writes, “According to the grace of God given to me, like a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another is building upon it” (1 Corinthians 3:10). We recognize that early seeds of a new digital infrastructure have been planted by developers who love the Church. Across countless repositories, there are tools built in the quiet of parish life – identity systems, liturgical calendars, and workflow engines- awaiting the nurture of a supportive community. As the early Church modeled, “The community of believers was of one heart and mind, and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they had everything in common” (Acts 4:32).
Our mission is to aggregate, vet, and communalize these gifts. “As each one has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God’s varied grace” (1 Peter 4:10). Our aim is not to sell products, but to professionalize the ecosystem. By providing institutional credibility, rigorous peer review, and shared documentation, we ensure that local ingenuity becomes a global resource. We transform scattered code into a durable architectural spine that outlasts any single volunteer, providing the Church with a discoverable and adoptable commons of open infrastructure.
The essential of the guild-idea is pursuing the same form of activity, but only in cooperation limited to the end of preserving the economic freedom — that is the property and livelihood — of each member of the guild. — Hilaire Belloc, The Crisis of Civilization (1937)
Translating Belloc’s idea of a guild to that of a foundation dedicated to a digital commons for the Catholic Church: the purpose of the foundation is to support cooperation among Church institutions in maintaining a shared digital infrastructure — preserving each institution’s independent ability to use, contribute to, and govern its own data and tools — without centralizing ownership or control beyond what is necessary for sustainability.
A Legacy of Preservation and Translation
This work is not without precedent. The Church has always been a custodian of knowledge and a translator of truth into the language of every age. In the sixth century, Cassiodorus founded the monastery of Vivarium (c. 560 AD) with its great scriptorium, dedicated to the preservation and copying of both sacred and secular texts. The Benedictine monks at Monte Cassino safeguarded the works of Tacitus, Apuleius, and Seneca through centuries of upheaval. Irish monks at Clonmacnoise, Iona, and Skellig Michael preserved Greek and Latin manuscripts and produced masterworks such as the Book of Kells. From these monastic and cathedral schools grew the first universities — Bologna (1088), Paris (c. 1150), Oxford (c. 1167) — institutions that shaped the intellectual inheritance of all humanity.
The same impulse that drove the monks to preserve ancient wisdom drove the early Church Fathers to translate the faith into the philosophical language of their time. Saint Justin Martyr taught that seeds of the divine Word – the logos spermatikos – were present in all cultures, awaiting their fulfillment in Christ. Saint Clement of Alexandria held that Greek philosophy was “a schoolmaster…paving the way for him who is perfected in Christ” (Stromata, Book I, Ch. V). Just as these great minds translated Christian theology into the intellectual idiom of the Greco-Roman world, so must we learn to speak the language of technology to carry the Gospel into the digital age. The prophet Habakkuk calls us to this clarity: “Write down the vision; make it plain upon tablets, so that the one who reads it may run” (Habakkuk 2:2).
It is a commonplace that they did everything that nobody else would do; that the abbeys kept the world’s diary, faced the plagues of all flesh, taught the first technical arts, preserved the pagan literature, and above all, by a perpetual patchwork of charity, kept the poor from the most distant sight of their modern despair. — G. K. Chesterton, A Short History of England (1917), Ch. IV: “The Defeat of the Barbarians”
Theology driving Technology
To guide our development, we adopt the full “algor-ethical” vision of the Rome Call for AI Ethics. Pope Francis warns that “technological products are not neutral, for they create a framework which ends up conditioning lifestyles and shaping social possibilities” (Laudato Si’ §107). The response must be holistic: “a distinctive way of looking at things, a way of thinking, policies, an educational program, a lifestyle and a spirituality which together generate resistance to the assault of the technocratic paradigm” (Laudato Si’ §111).
Our technical output is governed by these six essential principles:
- Transparency: All systems must be inherently explainable and open to understanding. “Every communication must comply with certain essential requirements and these are sincerity, honesty and truthfulness” (Communio et Progressio §17).
- Responsibility: We proceed with accountability, recognizing the weight of our influence on the human family.
- Impartiality: We safeguard fairness and human dignity, actively working to eliminate algorithmic bias.
- Reliability: Our infrastructure must be dependable, serving as a stable foundation for the missions it supports.
- Security and Privacy: We protect the sanctity of the person by securing their data and respecting their digital boundaries
- Inclusion: We design for the needs of all human beings, ensuring no one is excluded from the benefits of innovation. “The modern media of social communication offer men of today a great round table” (Communio et Progressio §19).
The Pace of Change and Human Impact
In addition to these ethics, we commit to a human-centered pace of change. The Council Fathers remind us that “all that men do to obtain greater justice, wider brotherhood, a more humane disposition of social relationships has greater worth than technical advances” (Gaudium et Spes §35). We believe that technical progress should never outpace our ability to discern technology’s impact on the family, while the community should keep pace with technological progress. As Pope Francis observed, “Digital connectivity is not enough to build bridges. It is not capable of uniting humanity” (Fratelli Tutti §43). We prioritize designing for social value, ensuring that the downstream effects on human solidarity are considered at the first line of code. Pope Benedict XVI underscored this imperative: “Technology enables us to exercise dominion over matter…Hence the pressing need for formation in an ethically responsible use of technology” (Caritas in Veritate §69-70). We advocate for a digital environment that respects the natural rhythms of human life and the “analog” requirements of a healthy soul. In Pope Francis’s words, “It is up to us to decide whether we will become fodder for algorithms or will nourish our hearts with that freedom without which we cannot grow in wisdom” (2024 WCD Message).
Leisure is a form of that stillness that is necessary preparation for accepting reality; only the person who is still can hear. — Josef Pieper, Leisure, the Basis of Culture (1948)
A Vision of Enduring Strength
The Lord commands, “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19). “You are the light of the world. A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden” (Matthew 5:14). In the Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-30), the Master entrusts his servants with gifts not to be buried but multiplied. We invite senior engineers, lay developers, and all people of goodwill with technical & theological grounding to join this work. As Pope Leo XIV declared, “Human beings are called to be co-workers in the work of creation, not merely passive consumers of content generated by artificial technology” (December 2025 Address). The Synod on Synodality urges that “local Churches should encourage, sustain and accompany those who are engaged in mission in the digital environment” (Synod Study Group 3). This is an invitation to build a “Digital Cathedral” – a structure whose strength is measured not in years, but in its fidelity to the Truth. We are building a commons that is free for everyone, builds on improvised frameworks available today, and offers a more holistic architectural approach.
Our goal is a digital landscape that reflects the beauty of the Creator and serves as a beacon of hope. In all this, “we are not pursuing ‘followers’ for ourselves, but for Christ” (Towards Full Presence §78). Technology, when grounded in magisterial anthropology, can truly elevate human dignity and the common good."
Knowledge is capable of being its own end. Such is the constitution of the human mind, that any kind of knowledge, if it be really such, is its own reward. — Saint John Henry Newman, The Idea of a University (1852), Discourse V
Governance
The Vetting Criteria for Acceptance
Gate 1: Incubation Acceptance
Criterion 1: Mission Alignment and Canonical Scope
The project must serve a purpose coherent with the Church’s evangelizing mission and with Catholic Social Teaching. It must be respectful of human dignity, conducive to human flourishing, and of potential service to the Church at a wide level.
Canonical boundaries. Technology projects must not attempt to simulate sacramental functions or present themselves as having ecclesial authority they do not possess.
Criterion 2: Human Accountability Architecture
Every consequential action or decision informed by the project must be attributable to a named, accountable human being. Accountability must be traceable to specific individuals operating within defined systems of consultation, in accordance with the principles of Catholic governance (cf. Canon 627).
Criterion 3: Transparency of Scope and Operation
The project must provide accurate documentation of its operation, its dependencies, its data usage, and its intended impact. This documentation must be sufficient for independent technical and canonical review.
Criterion 4: Independent Validation of Claimed Capabilities
The submitter must provide evidence that the project’s claimed capabilities have been validated by sources independent of the primary developers (e.g., third-party audits, peer reviews, or documented benchmarking).
Criterion 5: Impact on Vulnerable Populations
The project must demonstrate that its impact has been examined with particular attention to the “preferential option for the poor” and those most vulnerable to technological exclusion or harm.
Criterion 6: Deployment Governance Specification
The submitter must specify the governance conditions under which the project will operate, including decision authority levels, escalation conditions, and appeal processes for those affected by the project’s outputs.
Gate 2: Graduation to Active CDCF Project Status
Criterion 7: Documentation for Independent Deployment and Data Stewardship
The project must provide documentation sufficient for a Catholic institution to evaluate, configure, deploy, and support the project independently. It must also demonstrate rigorous data stewardship, complying with relevant legal and canonical requirements for data protection.
Criterion 8: Governance, Maintenance, and Subsidiarity Compatibility
The project must have a documented process for ongoing maintenance and community governance. It must be architecturally compatible with the principle of subsidiarity, allowing local communities (parishes, dioceses) to retain their proper initiative and responsibility."
(https://catholicdigitalcommons.org/governance/project-governance/project-vetting-criteria)