CDCF — Catholic Digital Commons Foundation

CDCF Standards Committees

Purpose

Standards committees are the bodies responsible for defining, reviewing, and maintaining CDCF standards. Each standard is developed by a dedicated committee composed of members with the domain expertise necessary to ensure that the standard faithfully and accurately represents the Catholic realities it encodes.

Standards committees operate under the authority of the CDCF and in filial submission to the Church hierarchy. Their work is a service to the Church, not an independent exercise of authority.

Composition

Each standards committee must include representation from the following categories, as appropriate to the domain of the standard:

1. Members of the Church hierarchy and hierarchical institutions

Standards that represent ecclesial realities — diocesan structures, liturgical rites, magisterial documents — must be developed with the direct participation of the Church institutions that are authoritative for those realities. This may include:

  • Representatives of diocesan curias or episcopal conferences
  • Officials of dicasteries of the Roman Curia (where the standard touches on matters under their competence)
  • Superiors or delegates of religious institutes (where relevant)

Their participation ensures that standards reflect the Church’s own understanding of its structures and are received with ecclesial legitimacy.

2. Academic experts

The rigour and accuracy of CDCF standards requires the contribution of scholars with deep expertise in the relevant domain. Depending on the standard, this may include experts in:

  • Theology and dogmatic tradition
  • Sacred Scripture and biblical studies
  • Ecclesiology and Canon Law
  • Liturgy and sacramental theology
  • Church history and hagiography

Catholic universities are natural homes for this expertise and are encouraged to participate through their theology, philosophy, and canon law faculties.

3. Catholic universities with computer science departments

Standards must be technically sound and implementable. Catholic universities with computer science or information science departments bring the capacity to:

  • Evaluate data modelling choices and identifier schemes
  • Assess interoperability with existing systems and standards (e.g., Unicode, BCP 47, ISO standards)
  • Conduct formal reviews of proposed specifications
  • Contribute research on best practices in data standardisation

The involvement of Catholic universities bridges the gap between ecclesial knowledge and technical implementation, and provides a formation opportunity for students in the service of the Church.

4. Practitioners and industry participants

Those who have been building Catholic software in practice bring irreplaceable real-world knowledge. This includes:

  • Software companies that work for bishops’ conferences, dioceses, and Church institutions
  • Independent developers who maintain widely used Catholic software (liturgical calendars, parish management tools, catechetical apps, etc.)
  • Technology teams within Catholic healthcare systems, educational networks, and charitable organisations

Practitioners ensure that standards are grounded in the realities of implementation, adoption, and deployment — not only in theory.

Formation of a standards committee

A new standards committee is formed when the CDCF identifies or receives a proposal for a new area of standardisation. The process is as follows:

  1. Proposal. A standards proposal is submitted to the CDCF, identifying the domain, the need for standardisation, and the anticipated scope.
  2. Review. The CDCF Board and the Technical and Canonical Standards Committee (TCSC) review the proposal for alignment with the Foundation’s mission and for feasibility.
  3. Call for participation. Upon acceptance, the CDCF issues a call for participation, inviting members from each of the four composition categories described above.
  4. Constitution. The committee is formally constituted with a named chair and an initial membership roster. The chair is responsible for facilitating the committee’s work and reporting to the TCSC.
  5. Charter. The committee drafts a charter defining the scope of the standard, the intended deliverables, the review process, and the timeline.

Working process

Standards committees follow an open, iterative process:

  • Drafting. The committee produces an initial draft of the standard, drawing on existing scholarship, data sources, and practical implementations.
  • Community review. Drafts are published for public review. Feedback is solicited from the broader Catholic developer community, ecclesial institutions, and academic experts.
  • Revision. The committee revises the draft in response to feedback, documenting substantive changes and the rationale for decisions.
  • Approval. The final draft is submitted to the TCSC for approval. For standards touching on matters of doctrine, liturgy, or canonical structure, the appropriate ecclesial authority is consulted before final approval.
  • Publication. Approved standards are published in the CDCF’s standards repositories and are versioned for ongoing maintenance.

Governance principles

  • Ecclesial fidelity. Standards must faithfully represent the Church’s own understanding of the realities they encode. Where the Church has defined structures, rites, or teachings, the standard must conform to those definitions.
  • Subsidiarity. Standards should define the minimum necessary for interoperability, leaving room for local adaptation where appropriate.
  • Openness. The standards development process is open to participation from the entire Catholic community. Drafts, deliberations, and decisions are documented publicly.
  • Technical excellence. Standards must be technically rigorous, well-documented, and implementable by developers of varying skill levels.
  • Stability and versioning. Published standards are versioned. Breaking changes require a new major version and a clear migration path.