Catholic professor calls families to reclaim the home in a technological age
Christendom College professor John Cuddeback released a book titled "The Intentional Household: Living as if People Matter" to help families create flourishing homes. The book outlines eight pillars to guide intentional living and improve relationships between spouses, parents and children. Cuddeback highlights how modern technology and cultural distractions undermine family priorities, urging a focus on human flourishing. He cites Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical Magnifica Humanitas as a call to examine technology use in homes, aligning with his book’s principles.
19 days ago
John Cuddeback, a Christendom College philosophy professor, is urging families to make their homes more deliberate centers of human flourishing amid cultural pressures and pervasive technology. In his new book, The Intentional Household: Living as if People Matter, he presents eight principles intended to strengthen relationships, shared work, leisure, and belonging within the home. 1
Cuddeback says many families want stronger relationships between spouses, parents, children, and older relatives but lack a clear vision or practical examples for achieving them. He attributes this difficulty partly to a culture whose assumptions and structures often work against sustained attention to home life. 1
Drawing on ancient and modern thinkers, the book argues that anyone can make meaningful progress by deliberately shaping household life around the needs of the people within it. Cuddeback presents this approach as applicable not only to families with children, but also to single people, married couples without children, and those experiencing separation or divorce. 1
He maintains that the principles of a healthy home are both enduring and adaptable, including in circumstances marked by suffering or family brokenness. Through humility and intentional action, individuals can cultivate greater belonging, connection, and presence in their homes. 1
Cuddeback identifies misplaced priorities as a central obstacle to building an intentional home. He says society does not sufficiently honor people who give sustained attention to household life, whether women or men, while its preoccupation with new technologies illustrates broader cultural pressures that can undermine the home. 1
Discussing Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, Cuddeback says the world has reached a crisis point in its use of technology. He argues that families must begin examining technology’s role in light of human flourishing because, in his view, no outside institution can undertake that work for them. 1
He also says that responsible technology use must follow from an understanding of human nature and purpose. In his account, a positive vision of daily household life provides the foundation for setting appropriate limits and directing technology toward genuine human development. 1
Cuddeback emphasizes ordinary activities as important means of renewing family relationships. He cites shared meals, collaborative work in the kitchen and other domestic activities, and informal leisure such as spending time together on a porch as practices that can influence marriage, parenting, and other relationships. 1
He connects this emphasis to the late writer Wendell Berry, whom he says recognized that the loss of meaningful work and leisure in the home contributed to disconnection and isolation. According to Cuddeback, Berry viewed the home as a place linking people with loved ones, neighbors, their bodies, the earth, and God. 1
Cuddeback highlights Berry’s argument that traditional domestic arts and other forms of household work are more significant than commonly acknowledged. He says such work can connect people to one another, to their bodies and surroundings, and ultimately to God. 1
For Cuddeback, the renewal of household life depends not on extraordinary programs but on recovering the value of ordinary work, shared presence, and intentional leisure. These practices are presented as concrete ways for people to make their homes places of deeper human connection. 1*
Pursue intentional family life amid technology, guided by Catholic teaching
Catholic teaching does not treat technology as inherently evil. It asks whether technology serves authentic human relationships, moral wisdom, and the family’s vocation—or whether it quietly replaces them. Science and technology should advance human dignity, guided by the “primacy of moral values.”
The family is the first community where children learn love, responsibility, faith, and concern for others. Pope Leo XIV describes Christian families as a primary nucleus of the Church and entrusted with transmitting faith to new generations.
Therefore, devices should fit around family life rather than determine its rhythm:
Technology can connect relatives who live far away, but it cannot replace direct conversation and physical presence.
Families should discuss technology openly and establish reasonable expectations together. Pope Francis warns that unrealistic prohibitions are unhelpful, while also recognizing the dangers of digital media for children and adolescents, including apathy, detachment from reality, and exposure to manipulation.
Practical questions include:
Parents should not only monitor technology but accompany their children: watch or explore suitable content with them, discuss what they encounter, and answer questions with patience and love.
Digital culture can encourage rapid consumption of information without patient reflection. The family should therefore cultivate silence, reading, meaningful conversation, outdoor activity, service, and face-to-face friendship. The family is where people learn “patient interiority”—the ability to attend to the truth, goodness, and dignity of another person.
This means asking not merely, “Is this technology useful?” but also:
Technology is never morally neutral in its effects; it must be evaluated according to the human relationships and purposes it serves.
Intentional family life is ultimately more than device management. It is a shared pursuit of holiness. Families grow through prayer, participation in the Church, forgiveness, service, patient conflict-resolution, and mutual respect. These practices help the home become a “domestic Church.”
A simple pattern might be:
The goal is not to reject the modern world but to humanize it. A family ordered toward God can use technology wisely while protecting what technology cannot provide: embodied presence, faithful love, moral formation, and communion.