Five Swiss church bodies representing Protestant, Roman Catholic, Old Catholic and evangelical Christians have jointly issued 10 ethical guidelines on artificial intelligence, arguing that human dignity rather than technical capability should determine how churches and society use the technology.
The document, titled "Humanity in the Digital Age," was adopted by the Protestant Church in Switzerland, the Swiss Bishops' Conference, the Christian Catholic Church of Switzerland, the umbrella association Freikirchen.ch and the Swiss Evangelical Alliance, according to a joint statement from the five bodies.
The guidelines are aimed chiefly at leaders of churches, congregations and church-related organizations. They combine a theological account of the human person with specific rules for church practice, including a prohibition on entering information covered by pastoral confidentiality into any AI system. The signatories also present the text as a contribution to wider public debate over the technology.
"Artificial intelligence is changing how we learn, work and relate to one another," said Rita Famos, president of the Protestant Church in Switzerland. "On this question, we as churches in Switzerland have one voice."
Ten guiding principles
Each guideline pairs a theme with a short thesis. The first four hold that people differ from machines, that relationships depend on embodied experience, that personal formation cannot be handed off to technology and that technology does not write history.
The remaining six concern truth and transparency, protection of human participation in decision-making, the claim that people are more than their data, environmental responsibility in the digital sphere, limits on concentrated digital power, and shared public responsibility for the direction of AI. The document describes the 10 theses as one common position rather than separate rules.
According to the text, the guidelines rest on a Christian understanding of human beings as beloved creatures made in the image of God. Their dignity, it says, comes from God's unconditional love and not from performance or usefulness, which places it outside anything a machine can achieve.
Bishop Charles Morerod, president of the Swiss Bishops' Conference, said the two questions cannot be separated. "Whoever speaks about artificial intelligence is always speaking about the human being as well," he said.
Neither enthusiasm nor fear
The authors reject both utopian promises and doomsday predictions about AI. In their view, stories of technological salvation and stories of catastrophe share a flaw: both treat technology as the driving force of history and reduce people to onlookers.
Such narratives, the document argues, distract from present problems including algorithmic discrimination, concentration of power and environmental costs. The greater risk, it says, is that people give up their own freedom and responsibility, either from resignation or for convenience.
The text also cautions against speaking of AI as a single entity. It distinguishes large language models, image and audio generators, recommendation systems used by search engines and online shops, and applications in medical diagnostics, robotics and scientific research.
Christian hope, the authors write, rests on God's faithfulness rather than on human progress. Salvation remains God's work, according to the document, and no technical achievement can overcome the brokenness of the world.
Rules for church practice
Much of the document addresses how churches themselves should use AI. Where AI is used in preaching, education, media work, counseling or fundraising, its output should be checked against sources, and quotations, factual claims and legal information should not be accepted without verification.
Churches should disclose AI use in counseling, pastoral care, education and decision-making, and wherever it shapes personal communication or authorship. A named individual must always remain responsible, the guidelines state.
On sermons, the authors warn that lessons and preaching produced efficiently by software, without being worked through and spiritually wrestled with by the preacher, cause church communication to lose depth and truthfulness.
The data protection section sets out the firmest limits. Personal or sensitive data should not be entered into AI systems unless storage location, further use and retention periods are contractually settled, according to the document. It rules out AI-based profiling of people seeking help, employees or volunteers, and fully automated decisions in sensitive areas.
The guidelines also warn that churches must never use closeness, trust or spiritual authority to manipulate people through AI tools.
Openings as well as risks
The document does not urge churches to avoid AI. It describes a dual task: monitoring and assessing the technology critically while investing in expertise, creating space for responsible experimentation and sharing applications that work.
Among the benefits it cites are real-time translation, automated transcription and text-to-speech tools, which it says allow people with illnesses, disabilities or language barriers to take part in church and public life. Anonymized data analysis could help churches identify loneliness, poverty or care needs earlier, the text says.
Peter Schneeberger, president of Freikirchen.ch, said AI is already part of church work. "AI has long been in use in our churches — for translations, administration, communication," he said. "These guidelines help us ask the right questions in doing so and see both the opportunities and the dangers."
The authors acknowledge that some people find it easier to open up to a chatbot than to another person, and that this can be a step toward later speaking with someone face to face. They warn, however, that platforms built to capture attention and simulate emotional closeness can replace human relationships rather than supplement them. Children, adolescents and vulnerable people need spaces where trust and belonging are not generated by algorithms, the document says.
Global justice and the environment
Several sections look beyond Switzerland. The document notes that the most powerful AI systems are controlled by a few large companies, mainly based in the United States and China, and that churches, schools and government agencies are becoming dependent on proprietary systems whose terms and prices they cannot influence.
People in poorer regions carry much of the cost, the authors write, through raw material extraction under precarious conditions, low-paid and stressful data work, and exclusion from digital participation. Many environmental costs, including electricity and cooling water for data centers and growing electronic waste, are shifted to other parts of the world and remain largely invisible to users in the Global North, according to the text.
The guidelines ask churches to assess AI products for data protection, transparency, technical dependency and the ability to switch providers. They also encourage Christian aid organizations to bring the experience of affected communities into public debate.
Bishop Frank Bangerter of the Christian Catholic Church said the guidelines deliberately focus on those at risk of being left behind. "AI must not benefit only those who already hold power anyway," he said. "Technical progress is only good if it serves everyone."
A common commitment beyond church traditions
The Swiss churches link the guidelines to the Charta Oecumenica, the joint commitment of European Protestant, Orthodox and Catholic churches. Its revised edition, signed in Rome in November 2025, includes a section on new technologies for the first time and commits churches to developing ethical guidelines on them. The Swiss document calls itself a first step in that direction.
Its listed sources include Pope Leo XIV's encyclical "Magnifica humanitas" on AI, published in May 2026; the Vatican note "Antiqua et nova" from January 2025; statements by the World Council of Churches and the Evangelical Church in Germany; and an AI ethics framework from the Lausanne Movement. Earlier working papers from the Swiss Evangelical Alliance are also cited.
The text was drafted by theologians and specialists from the participating traditions, among them Manuel Schmid of the Protestant Church in Switzerland's Centre for Theology and Ethics and Oliver Dürr of the Centre for Faith and Society at the University of Fribourg. The authors describe the document as provisional and subject to ongoing review.
The guidelines will be presented and discussed at a specialist conference, "Ghost in the machine," at the Paulus Akademie in Zurich on Oct. 20, according to the joint statement. The full text is available in multiple languages at menschlichkeit-digital.ch.
The document closes by saying churches should enter the public debate on AI not as moral authorities with ready-made answers, but as communities of faith drawing on a long tradition.
Andi Bachmann-Roth, co-general secretary of the Swiss Evangelical Alliance, made a similar point. "Churches are not AI experts," he said. "But behind the technology lies the question of what a flourishing life is. To that, Christianity has offered a sustaining answer for two millennia."
