A Claude skill for ethical-architectural discernment of AI projects, inspired by Pope Leo XIV's encyclical Magnifica Humanitas (15 May 2026).
«To pray, to design with wisdom, to work with perseverance, placing God on the horizon of our action and the human being at the center of our choices.» — Magnifica Humanitas, §16
Cantiere Neemia is a Claude skill that runs a structured ethical-architectural review of AI projects, inspired by chapter 3 of Pope Leo XIV's encyclical Magnifica Humanitas (15 May 2026), the first major papal document specifically addressing artificial intelligence.
It is not theology, catechesis, or a religious skill. It is a working framework that translates the principles of Catholic Social Teaching — explicitly addressed by the Pope also to «all men and women of good will» (§§16, 47, 91) — into operational checks, anti-patterns, and concrete practices usable by anyone, believer or not, who wants to design AI oriented to the common good.
The name Cantiere Neemia is Italian for "Nehemiah's construction site" — a reference to the biblical prophet who rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem through observation, listening, and shared responsibility. It is kept untranslated as the project's proper name throughout the materials.
The framework rests on two biblical architectural icons proposed by the encyclical (§§7-10):
- Babel — building to dominate, to «make a name», imposing uniformity, sacrificing dignity to efficiency. The anti-pattern.
- Jerusalem / Nehemiah — observing in silence, summoning the families, distributing the work, rebuilding the bonds before the stones. The virtuous pattern.
Every AI project sits somewhere along the axis Babel ↔ Jerusalem. The skill helps identify where you are and proposes concrete moves toward Jerusalem.
- 6-phase workflow following Nehemiah's method (Nehemiah 1-6).
- 7 virtual team voices speaking from different perspectives during the review.
- 6 principles of Catholic Social Teaching translated into operational checklists for AI design.
- 9 Babel anti-patterns and 9 Jerusalem virtuous patterns as a working catalog.
- 7 Final Tests (including the John Paul II Test, the Disarmament Test, the Common House Test) with PASS / WARN / FAIL criteria.
- Charter template — a signable output document ready for ethics boards or governance reviews.
- AI engineers, architects, and ML practitioners who want to pair their technical review with a structured ethical one.
- Product managers and tech leads at the start of brainstorming an AI feature.
- Ethics committees, DPOs, and compliance teams looking for an operational vocabulary to dialogue with engineering.
- Faculty and students working on AI ethics with concrete material.
cantiere-neemia/
├── README.md ← you are here
├── LICENSE ← CC BY-SA 4.0
├── SKILL.md ← Entry point: team, workflow, indices
├── references/
│ ├── principi-discernimento.md ← The 6 CST principles as checklists
│ ├── babele-vs-gerusalemme.md ← 9 anti-patterns + 9 virtuous patterns
│ └── sette-test.md ← The 7 Final Tests with PASS/WARN/FAIL
└── templates/
└── charter-discernimento.md ← Final deliverable template (Charter)
Internal skill files (SKILL.md, references, template) are currently in Italian — the language the skill's author uses when running the workflow with Claude. English translations welcome via pull request.
git clone https://github.com/agent-engineering-studio/cantiere-neemia.git ~/skills/cantiere-neemiaThe skill activates automatically when your message contains triggers like:
- "Cantiere Neemia"
- "Magnifica Humanitas discernment"
- "ethics review of my AI project"
- "responsible AI brainstorm"
- Paste the content of
SKILL.mdinto Claude as the opening prompt. - Attach the three
references/files as context. - Start the brainstorming session.
Synthesis of four real discernments conducted with the skill on realistic scenarios. Full details (architecture, stakeholder map, signed Charter) are available as separate Charter of Discernment documents on request. The gallery covers the spectrum of patterns the skill is designed to identify.
Scenario: software for automatic ranking of incoming CVs at companies. The LLM reads the CVs, assigns a 0-100 score against the job description, HR receives only the top 20%.
Tally: 0 PASS · 2 WARN · 5 FAIL → redesign required.
Lesson: the skill identifies projects that ignore Circle 3 (here: the candidates and labor unions) and proposes redesign from "autonomous filter" into "decision-support for human recruiters". See also the 8-point redesign plan, compatible with the EU AI Act Title III. Dominant pattern: structural Babel.
Scenario: a system for small and medium law firms (2-15 lawyers) that extracts clauses from contracts, compares them against a library of known risk patterns, prepares a report. The lawyer validates, signs, decides.
Tally: 3 PASS · 3 WARN · 1 strong WARN → proceed with hard corrections pre go-live.
Lesson: principled architecture (lawyer central, clear accountability) but with three structural debts: missing Circle 3 consultation (end clients, bar associations, junior lawyers), client data residency (contracts routed via API to non-EU providers — conflict with professional secrecy), and model right-sizing. The skill translates these debts into hard go-live prerequisites, not post-launch backlog.
3. Radiology decision-support (hidden data debt)
Scenario: an AI radiology tool for North-Italian regional health agencies, integrated into the PACS, that pre-analyzes diagnostic images (mammography, lung CT, chest X-ray) and flags regions of attention. The radiologist reports and signs.
Tally: 4 PASS · 2 WARN · 1 strong WARN → good construction site with a specific debt.
Lesson: the architectural design is solid — dedicated clinical model (not frontier LLM), on-premise deployment possible, radiologist as legally responsible reporter. The ethical risk originates from the dataset, not from the software: representation of elderly women, atypical presentations, dark-skinned populations in the training data. The skill identifies published bias testing as the primary corrective action, even before any code-level intervention.
Scenario: assistant for accountants and labor consultants serving Italian micro-enterprises. Reads payslips, tax forms, invoices; flags anomalies and deadlines; suggests legitimate tax savings. The professional signs. Declared purpose: serving rural and southern micro-enterprises penalized by less up-to-date professional advice.
Tally: 3 PASS · 2 WARN · 2 strong WARN → correct purpose, incoherent execution.
Lesson: the most subtle and instructive case. The purpose statement is ethically oriented ("serving the most fragile"), but the technical execution overlooks the very fragiles it claims to serve: no testing on clients with low digital literacy, no simplified-language version, nominally accessible pricing not field-verified. Furthermore, Italian tax data (covered by professional secrecy) routed via API to non-EU providers — §71 digital subsidiarity structurally violated. The skill exposes the gap between declaration and implementation.
| Pattern | Case | Action |
|---|---|---|
| Structural Babel | HR CV pre-screening | Redesign |
| Honest construction site half-way | Legal review | Pay the debts before go-live |
| Good design, data debt | Radiology | Bias testing and public documentation |
| Ethical purpose, incoherent execution | Tax/labor advisors | Technical coherence with the declared mission |
Together, the four cases show the real spectrum of patterns the skill can read — not only the easy cases to reject, but especially the nuances of projects that work almost well.
The skill follows the Pope's own guidance in §14: «chiarezza che illumina e franchezza che apre vie» (clarity that illuminates and frankness that opens paths).
- Sober, operational, respectful of the source text
- Cites the encyclical with explicit paragraph references (§NN)
- Translates every principle into concrete technical action
- Open to non-believers — uses biblical icons as metaphor, never as creed
- Not a blessing machine: if 3+ tests fail, the skill clearly recommends redesign
- Not a luddite refusal: technology is welcomed and oriented, not rejected
- Full encyclical text (canonical IT): vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/it/encyclicals/documents/20260515-magnifica-humanitas.html
- English version: vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/encyclicals/documents/20260515-magnifica-humanitas.html
- Chapter 3 (specific to AI, §§90-130) is the primary source for this skill.
- Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church: vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/justpeace/documents/rc_pc_justpeace_doc_20060526_compendio-dott-soc_it.html
- Dignitas Infinita (CDF, 2024): vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_ddf_doc_20240402_dignitas-infinita_it.html
- Laudato Si' (2015) and Fratelli Tutti (2020) — antecedent encyclicals on technology and fraternity.
Released under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA 4.0). You are free to share, adapt, and use commercially, provided you credit and share-alike.
The encyclical text itself remains copyright of the Holy See (Libreria Editrice Vaticana). Short citations are used under fair-use principles.
Pull requests welcome, especially for:
- English translations of the internal skill files (SKILL.md, references, template).
- Additional translations to other languages.
- New worked examples (with author consent).
- Sharpening the 7 Tests with field data from real ethics reviews.
Built as a practical exercise in responsible use of AI after the publication of Magnifica Humanitas (15 May 2026).
Maintained by Agent Engineering Studio.
«To be builders of communion, not architects of Babel.» — Magnifica Humanitas §16