Families Should Also Be Builders

While reading Magnifica Humanitas, I noticed the potential powerful answer of open-source artificial intelligence solutions. Pope Leo XIV rightly recognizes the dangers of singularly-owned, powerful data tools. From this encyclical, the Catholic Digital Commons Foundation should recognize a profound validation of its mission: building transparent, community-governed technology in service of the Church.

I read the encyclical with a two-week-old baby in my arms, which provided a concrete example of the vulnerable Pope Leo XIV calls all people of good will to protect. The open-source development process is one we need to bring families into because the way our digital programs treat data profoundly impacts the future of children.

What does Catholicism Have to Say about Data?

The passage from Magnifica Humanitas that I keep returning to is 67: “Today, among the goods that are universally intended for everyone, we must also include new forms of property, such as patents, algorithms, digital platforms, technological infrastructure and data. In a context where the wealth of nations depends increasingly on knowledge and technology, when these goods remain concentrated in the hands of a few, without adequate forms of sharing and access, a new imbalance is created that contradicts the universal destination of goods.”

For the CDCF, this is the theological foundation for an open-source commons. It’s the argument for transparent code, community governance, and digital infrastructure that serves the Church rather than extracting from it.

However, I want to focus specifically on “data”. In my professional career, I’ve focused on helping communities understand how information about them is collected, used, and sometimes weaponized. Over the past decade at Data Driven Detroit, I’ve noticed that the people most affected by data systems are almost always the least consulted in building them. One of the primary tools I began using to rectify this is participatory analysis and community data ownership. Knowing where personal data is stored and having a say in how it is used is empowering in communities, especially in places like Detroit where data collection has been a primarily extractive practice for decades.

It’s worth asking how the current platforms and apps impact families’ digital footprints.  Do the church’s digital platforms, from fundraising and organizing to communication and media, contribute to this new imbalance?

Families Are Generating the Data

Consider what a typical Catholic family’s digital footprint looks like within Church life alone. Children log into education platforms at Catholic schools. Adults use parish communication apps to sign up for holy hours or manage Vacation Bible School attendance. There are interactions with payment systems, donation portals, sacramental databases, sign up sheets, registration forms, etc. Each of these generates data about a family’s engagement with parish life.

That data sits on a company’s servers. It’s governed by a company’s terms of service. And when the platform changes pricing, gets acquired, or pivots to a different market, these same families absorb the consequences, without any say about the infrastructure choices in the first place.

Pope Leo calls for “transparency, accountability and meaningful forms of participation” in digital systems, including “independent checks, transparency regarding algorithms, equitable access to data and avenues for recourse” (71). The CDCF is building toward that: tools where the code is visible, the governance is shared, and the community retains control.

But meaningful participation requires more than open-source app development. It requires that the people generating the data, including families, have a voice in how systems are designed, what they collect, and who they serve.

Bringing Family Voices to the Commons

In the builder community, the conversation is in-depth and sophisticated: subsidiarity, algorithmic transparency, the Rome Call principles. In Catholic parent circles, the conversation is much simpler, but equally important: Should I let my kid use this? How do I keep them safe? Should we just unplug?

These aren’t simplistic questions. They’re the questions of people who have been left out of the design process. If Catholic builders don’t actively bring families into the conversation, the tools will be developed without hearing from the people who make up most of it. The user testing process is always illuminating, but that’s an end-stage design process.

Bringing potential users into the early design phases always provides helpful perspectives. Families will identify use cases that developers don’t always anticipate. Consider an app for a parish to manage holy hour that was designed without talking to senior parishioners. This app risks creating a platform that excludes the bulk of Eucharistic adorers.  Building a new app for families without actually engaging families risks wasting time by guessing at what families actually need in the current time and place. Developers should bring the user into the beginning of the design cycle and create meaningful participation touchpoints throughout the process to help define the technological infrastructure that continues to direct parish life.

Families also bring urgency to the conversation. When their child’s data is at stake, arguments for transparency become more real for everyone. The principle of subsidiarity stops being a theological concept and starts being a question of protecting their child’s identity, personal information, and even their image.

Starting the Connection

What could it look like to bring families closer to the Commons? 

Plain-language communication. When the CDCF talks about its projects, translate the value proposition for non-technical audiences. Not just “open-source liturgical calendar API” but “a parish calendar tool that no company can take away from you.”

Family-centered feedback loops. When building tools that families will use like parish platforms, religious education tools, sacramental databases, include parents in the design process. Not as an afterthought for user testing, but as a core part of the process.

Data literacy as digital evangelization. Pope Leo urged media, information and AI literacy at all levels of education. The CDCF is uniquely positioned to support this by being the place where Catholic families can see how digital tools work and understand why that matters.

Magnifica Humanitas demonstrates the need for the open source community. It also is clear that digital initiatives “take into account not only the immediate benefit for a few, but also the impact on all peoples and on future generations.” (MH 76) Now the question is how do we further include the people whose daily lives are most shaped by these digital systems. If the CDCF’s vision is a commons that serves the universal Church, much like the group of people Nehemiah engaged to rebuild the wall: “men, women, priests, artisans, heads of households and young people” (MH 8). These are the people Catholic builders today should engage in the whole process, making sure that families are welcome to the table as builders, not just end-users.