This page exists because the Formation framework recommends that every Catholic parish write and publish an AI policy. We should not recommend a practice we do not hold ourselves to.
It also exists because AI is genuinely part of how the Formation framework was produced, and a reader thinking about adopting any of our free material deserves to know that, and to know what it does and does not mean.
Why this framework exists before the AI question arises
Before the disclosure, a piece of context without which the disclosure makes less sense.
The Formation framework is the work of roughly fifteen years in communications, web, and agency ownership, with ten of those years spent inside Catholic parish and public-sector communications specifically. It is a distillation of patterns seen across many parishes, many handovers, many well-meaning initiatives that succeeded or failed for reasons the people in the room at the time could not always see. One of the features of work at that intersection is that nobody stays long enough to notice the cycles: priests move, diocesan staff rotate, volunteers come and go. The person who stayed long enough to notice wrote some of it down.
The framework is free, and will remain free. No parish will ever pay us for the right to download, adapt, or use any of the Formation material. The thinking is given away because the point of the thinking is that it should reach the parishes that need it, not that it should become a product. A parish that uses the entire library and never becomes a client is exactly the outcome the framework is designed to serve.
This is relevant to the AI question because it shapes how AI has been used. The aim has not been to generate content cheaply for commercial release. The aim has been to get fifteen years of accumulated practice out of one person’s head and into a form a parish secretary in any English diocese can actually use on a Tuesday afternoon.
What AI did in the making
Pre-AI, a framework of this scope would have taken years of evenings and probably would not have been finished. One person with limited time and a demanding day job does not, realistically, produce thirty-three pieces of considered long-form material without significant help.
What AI made possible, specifically: the thinking could be spoken out loud and returned in a drafted form that could then be revised, argued with, cut, and re-shaped. The synthesis was the hard part. Articulating the synthesis was the slow part. AI compressed the slow part without replacing the hard part.
The judgment calls — what the four pillars are, what a Communications Champion is, why three liturgical seasons is the honest minimum for change, what belongs in the Eighth-Commandment discussion in Pillar 4, where to draw the lines around sacred imagery — are Sean’s. The framework exists because one person paid attention to parish communications for a decade and had something specific to say about it. AI did not supply the attention, and AI did not supply the position. AI helped extend and articulate a position that already existed.
The prose, across the library, is a collaboration. Some passages are Sean’s direct writing; some began as AI drafts and were rewritten substantially; some are AI drafts that Sean accepted with light revision because they said the thing accurately. Across the whole library, Sean is the editor, the final voice, and the one accountable for what is published.
This is not a page apologising for AI use. It is a page describing it, so that anyone considering the same question for their own parish can see one worked answer.
The principle we work to
The human is the oversight. This is the same principle the Pillar 4 cornerstone asks parishes to hold.
In our own practice, it means that for anything True Light Digital publishes under its own name, Sean has read, considered, and taken responsibility for what appears. AI has been used as an aid in the drafting; the judgment, the voice, the framework decisions, and the accountability are human.
The principle rules out content published under Sean’s name that he has not read, shaped, or meaningfully endorsed. It rules out content where a reader would reasonably feel misled to learn AI had been part of its production. It permits AI as a drafting partner, a synthesiser, a sounding board, and a translator between the shape of an idea and the shape of a sentence.
Specifically: what AI is used for
In the Formation framework and on the rest of the True Light Digital site:
- Drafting first passes of supplemental resources from outlines Sean has developed.
- Articulating cornerstone essay sections once the framework for them has been worked out in conversation.
- Consistency checks across the library, including cross-references between pillars and between pieces.
- Summarising material Sean has read and wants to compress, for his own review.
- Proofreading passes for typos, inconsistencies, and occasional infelicities of phrasing.
- Translation support, with native-speaker checks before publication.
In client work (the bespoke parish engagements True Light Digital takes on for fee), the same process applies. Drafts may be AI-assisted. Sean is the accountable editor. Where a client parish wishes to know more about our process, we explain it; this page is part of that explanation.
The AI system in active use for most of this work is Claude, made by Anthropic. Other tools are used for specific tasks (proofreading, transcription, translation) where they perform better.
Specifically: what AI is not used for
Sacred imagery. True Light Digital does not publish AI-generated images of Christ, Mary, the saints, or the Eucharist, anywhere, including in client work. This is a standing rule. The Church’s theology of sacred imagery does not yet have a settled position on AI-generated religious art; we are staying with commissioned human work, existing sacred art with proper licence, or traditional imagery in the public domain until she does.
Framework decisions. What the Formation framework says, what position it takes on contested questions, and what it includes or excludes are Sean’s decisions, taken with the seriousness the subject matter requires. AI has been consulted on these decisions as a sounding board; it has not made them.
Pastoral writing that claims personal experience. Where Formation speaks of a parish secretary at her desk on a Wednesday afternoon, or a priest tired on Saturday evening, or a grieving family in a condolence conversation, the scenes are drawn from patterns Sean has observed across many parishes over many years. AI has helped articulate them. The patterns themselves are not invented.
Quotations and citations. We do not use AI to generate quotations attributed to real people. Where Formation references magisterial documents, canon law, scripture, or specific Church traditions, those references are to real sources.
Content attributed to others. We do not produce writing purportedly by someone else. Where Formation is signed by Sean, Sean has written or shaped it; where it is attributed to True Light Digital, the same is true.
Why we are saying this at all
Because the absence of disclosure is what makes AI in Catholic communications harder to trust.
A reader who knows how we use AI can make an informed judgment about what they are reading, and about whether our recommendations are coherent with our practice. A reader who does not know is left either to trust uncritically or to suspect broadly. Neither is the relationship we want with readers, and neither is the relationship the Pillar 4 framework asks parishes to build with their own readers.
If this page raises specific questions about a specific piece of our content, please get in touch. We will answer directly.
Review
This page is updated whenever our practice changes materially, and at least annually. The most recent revision date is at the top of this page.
Each revision considers whether what is described here still matches the work being done; whether the tools have changed significantly; whether the Church has issued guidance that affects our approach; and whether readers have raised questions worth shaping the next version around.
Previous versions are preserved on request.
Sean Brannon True Light Digital Last revised: April 2026
This page is part of True Light Digital’s standing disclosures. The Formation framework, including the full Pillar 4 treatment of guardrails and discernment, is free at truelight.digital/formation.