AI in service of the human person.
Synderesis is the world's first AI model trained to follow Catholic values, and the first such system available to consumers: a complete, usable product — chat, apps and plans — not just released model weights, and not a wrapper or prompt layer over a general-purpose AI. The model itself is trained on thousands of teaching examples drawn from millions of words of Church teaching. AI should assist, never replace, human judgment.
The people behind Synderesis.
Hasse Hällström
An AI researcher with a doctorate in philosophy and a research focus on AI ethics. Hasse leads Synderesis’s technical and research work, including model development and evaluation against Catholic teaching.
Oscar Andersson
Oscar leads partnerships, product positioning and the work of bringing Synderesis to the people and organisations it is built for.
The work has also received input from a Catholic priest and theologian. This contribution helps inform the project; it does not confer official Church approval.
You can be cautious about AI and curious about its uses.
AI raises reasonable questions. Whose values shape the answer? Can I check its sources? What should I trust it to do? We want people to be able to ask those questions of Synderesis, including people who have been sceptical of AI.
In Magnifica Humanitas, Pope Leo XIV explains that technology takes on the character of the people who develop, fund, govern and use it (§9). Synderesis makes its own foundation explicit: the Catholic faith and the dignity of the human person.
Research offers further questions to consider: a Stanford working paper on perceived political slant, a preprint on the representation of different perspectives, and an AIES study of values in human feedback. These are useful starting points for examining how AI is shaped.
"Ours is the pressing duty to remain profoundly human."Pope Leo XIV · Magnifica Humanitas (15 May 2026, §15)
For us, that means helping people understand, write and research while keeping decisions with people. You can start with a small task, examine the result and decide whether the tool is useful to you.
Catholic foundations. Practical assistance. Human responsibility.
Human judgment comes first
Use Synderesis to explore questions, compare options and prepare drafts. Check important information and bring decisions back to your own judgment and the people involved.
Privacy and deployment choices
Clear privacy controls, with private-cloud and on-premise options to discuss when organisations require tighter control.
Church teaching where it matters
Catholic principles guide our design and evaluation. When a question calls for Church teaching, Synderesis can draw on official Catholic sources for you to read and check.
Measured against the teaching of the Church.
Catholic teaching on the human person, conscience and the dignity of life guides how we build, evaluate and improve Synderesis. Our work includes Catholic benchmark questions and grounding in official Church sources, alongside philosophical and theological input.
AI can still make mistakes. A Catholic foundation does not make every answer correct. Read the cited source, check that it supports the answer and seek appropriate human guidance on important questions. Synderesis does not replace a priest, spiritual director or your own conscience.
The name synderesis refers to the basic human capacity to recognise good and evil. It expresses our hope that technology can support thoughtful action while moral responsibility remains with people.
Contributors
Fr. Oskari Juurikkala, PhD
A Finnish Catholic priest and a member of Opus Dei, he is also Adjunct Professor of Law and Economics at the University of Helsinki. He holds a PhD in theology from the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross (2019), with a background in law and economics.
He contributed to building Synderesis Labora, among other contributions to Synderesis.
Help build thoughtful Catholic AI.
This is early, deliberate work with a long horizon. If you want to help shape Catholic AI for mission-driven institutions, we'd like to hear from you.
Common questions.
What does the name Synderesis mean?
Is Synderesis an official Church service?
Where is data hosted, and is it private?
What does “Catholic-aligned” mean?
How is this different from other assistants or ChatGPT?
Do I have to be Catholic?
How do we get started?
Let's build something faithful.
Whether you want to use Synderesis yourself, bring it into your professional work, deploy it across an organisation or help shape it, start here.