Your Parish Needs an AI Policy. Here Is Why, and How to Write One
Your parish probably already has AI in its communications work. You may not know about all of it.
Formation · a reader pathway
The essays and templates most useful to this role, gathered across the four practices.
Your parish probably already has AI in its communications work. You may not know about all of it.
7 min read
Holy Week is the held breath at the fullest point of the year. It is the holiest week in the Christian calendar, the week towards which all of Lent has been inclined, the week whose three central days, the Sacred Triduum, hold the whole meaning…
5 min read
A parishioner has posted something angry on Facebook about the priest's handling of a recent parish decision. It is not a safe environment matter. It is not a doctrinal matter. It is a disagreement, expressed publicly, gathering a little attention. A…
6 min read
Most of parish communications is a matter of discernment, with legitimate goods on both sides of the judgment. Some of it is not. A few categories of content should not be published by a parish, period, regardless of how warmly the submission was…
6 min read
Most parish secretaries plan their communications week by week. What is going into Friday's newsletter? What is going on the parish Facebook page this weekend? What is happening on Monday that someone has to be told about by Sunday?
6 min read
It is a Wednesday afternoon in April. The parish secretary is at her desk. The newsletter goes out on Friday. She has thirty-six items in the inbox, eleven of them yet to read, and she is trying to finish the second draft before the priest…
5 min read
It is Friday afternoon. Four o'clock. The newsletter went out at two. You had planned to leave at half past four because your daughter has a dentist appointment at five, and you have been looking forward to the drive for two days because it is…
6 min read
Father mentioned it after Mass. Or the parish secretary asked you over tea. Or someone at the Parish Pastoral Council said you were good with computers. You said yes, because you wanted to help, and now you are staring at a half-empty Facebook…
7 min read
Template
A single-page template the curator customizes for her parish and hands to each originator (SVP lead, youth minister, music director, catechist, and so on). Pinned above the originator's desk. Referred to every time she has something to submit.
1 page · PDF · Word
Template
The flagship Pillar 2 download. A printable, fillable planning tool that treats the liturgical year as the primary organizing principle for parish communications.
13 pages · PDF · Word
Template
A one-page policy template that helps a parish articulate and document its approach to AI in communications. Adapted by the parish from the template; signed by priest, parish secretary, and a PPC member; reviewed annually.
1 page policy + 1 page guidance · PDF · Word
Worksheet
A structured worksheet for producing an honest, non-judgmental view of a parish's actual communications output over a specific period. Usually reveals that the output is structurally flat across the liturgical year.
4 pages · PDF · Word
Template
This document contains two parts:
1 page template + 1 page companion note · PDF · Word
Template
This document contains three parts:
1 page full checklist + 1 page short-form checklist + 1 page companion guide · PDF · Word
Worksheet
A structured worksheet for making the parish's whole communications ecosystem visible in one view. Used by the priest or PPC chair, usually alone or with the parish secretary, in a dedicated sitting of ninety minutes to two hours.
5 pages · PDF · Word
Template
A specific interface document between parish safe environment and parish communications. Not a safe environment policy: the parish safe environment officer has that, following diocesan and bishops' conference guidance. This template closes the gap between…
2 pages protocol + 1 page worked examples · PDF · Word
Template
A one-page policy template that deaneries, dioceses, or clusters of parishes can adopt (and adapt) to eliminate duplicate content across organizational levels. Names where each content type originates, where it syndicates to, and who owns each.
2 pages (policy + guidance) · PDF · Word
This pack contains four documents. Together, they are enough to start a parish communications system from something like zero.
~500 words
Template
A reference document for project sponsors, agencies, and priests responsible for the pace of a parish change. Read at the start of a project and reread at the start of each of the three seasons. Not a one-time read; a working companion.
4 pages · PDF · Word
Worksheet
The honoring-before-proposing exercise. A structured worksheet that forces the discipline of understanding what is currently good, and naming it specifically, before any change is proposed.
5 pages · PDF · Word
Reflection Guide
For the priest, parish secretary, or curator facing a communications decision they are not sure about.
6 pages · PDF
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