Catholics back new pro-family agenda on technology and human flourishing

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Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Feb 4, 2025 / 11:10 am (CNA).

Several prominent Catholic thinkers and policy experts are backing a new pro-family policy agenda on the future of technology.

Ethics and Public Policy Center President Ryan T. Anderson, author and University of Notre Dame professor Patrick Deneen, and Princeton University’s Robert P. George are among the 28 signatories of the declaration on technology, “A Future for the Family: A New Technology Agenda for the Right.”

Published in First Things magazine on Jan. 29, the declaration serves as a mission statement for a broader initiative, “A Future for the Family,” sponsored by several prominent pro-family think tanks, including the Institute for Family Studies, the Ethics and Public Policy Center, the Foundation for American Innovation, and the Heritage Foundation.

“A new era of technological change is upon us. It threatens to supplant the human person and make the family functionally and biologically unnecessary. But this anti-human outcome is not inevitable,” the statement reads. “We must enact policies that elevate the family to a primary constituency of technological advancement.”

The statement offers 10 “guiding principles” for using technology to serve families instead of “military, bureaucratic, and corporate purposes.” Among them are calls to “respect the natural cycle of mortality,” to promote natural fertility methods, and to safeguard human sexuality from societal ills such as pornography, child sex abuse materials, and other AI-generated sexual content. 

The statement’s authors also called for measures to combat addictive software on smart devices, especially for children, increased data protection in legislation, promotion of technologies “that enhanced human skill and improve worker satisfaction,” and more projects that encourage “cultivation of the natural world.” 

“To undermine the family is to undo the future,” the statement concludes. “To strengthen the family is to fill the future with possibility, invention, and hope.”

Additional signatories include Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts, University of Notre Dame law professor and Ethics and Public Policy Center fellow O. Carter Snead, and First Things editor R.R. Reno.