98.5% of Catholic parishes have no AI policy either

A short follow-up to the 94% post, on the Catholic side of the same gap — and the same weekend fix. Reading time: about 3 minutes.

Last week we wrote about Protestant pastors: 94% say a church should have guidelines for responsible AI use, and only 4% say their church has a formal policy. The Catholic side of the same story has now been measured — and the gap is wider still.

Pushpay's 2026 State of Church Technology Report, produced with Barna Group, asked Catholic parish leaders whether their parish has an AI use policy. 98.5% said no. Only 1.5% said yes.

That is not because parish leaders do not see the need. 74.6% said a policy is important. Three in four know the parish ought to have one; almost none has written one yet.

The figures come from the takeaways Pushpay shared on 10 November from the 2026 Builders AI Forum in Rome (5–6 November), held at the Pontifical Gregorian University. The forum's line is the one worth keeping: artificial intelligence must never replace authentic human connection. Tools should reduce administrative burdens so staff and clergy have more time for pastoral presence and community care. As Pushpay's Gerardo Butalid put it in Rome: “Technology is a tool, not the mission itself. When AI handles heavy administrative tasks, it creates space for parish staff to focus on what only humans can do.”

The forum's other takeaways point the same way: ethical discernment must guide adoption, with human dignity, data privacy and safety put ahead of adopting a tool simply because the capability exists; and the Church should help shape emerging technology rather than passively react to it, with leaders, theologians, ethicists and technologists working together rather than in silos.

None of that is an argument against using AI in a parish. It is an argument for agreeing, in writing, how the parish will use it — before a volunteer pastes a prayer list, a child's details, or a giving record into a chatbot.

So here is the weekend version. It is the whole point of the template we published last week:

• Friday evening, 30 minutes: name one person to own the policy, and one person to review it with them.
• Saturday morning, 90 minutes: fill in the template together — the approved-uses list, the never-enter list, the giving-data rule, and a review date.
• Sunday, one minute: tell the congregation, in a single sentence, what you agreed.

That is how a parish joins the 1.5%. The template is copy-ready, with the blanks to fill in and nothing to buy: A church AI policy in a weekend →