Incredible: Duolingo for the Catholic faith
Creedo is a new app that uses games and daily streaks to help people learn about the Catholic faith. Developer Caleb Burbach, a FOCUS campus missionary with a background in computer science and graphic design, created the app to support his own spiritual growth and help others meet Christ. Burbach says Creedo brings together his experience in mission work and his interest in technology.
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Creedo is a free Catholic-learning app that uses short, game-like lessons and daily streaks to make faith formation easier to approach. Its developer, campus missionary Caleb Burbach, says it is designed to complement—not replace—the sacraments, parish community, or learning from other people.
Inspired by language-learning apps such as Duolingo, Creedo breaks Catholic teaching into brief activities users can complete a few minutes at a time. Lessons draw on Scripture, the Catechism, and writings by saints, and cite specific passages so users can consult the original texts.
Burbach, who studied computer science and graphic design before working in campus ministry with FOCUS, developed the app to help people who wanted to learn about their faith but did not know where to begin. He said the goal was to make Catholic teaching more approachable without diminishing its substance.
Creedo had been downloaded about 27,000 times on iPhone and Android, and users had completed more than one million activities, according to Burbach. Parishes are using it for OCIA, Confirmation, and adult faith formation.
Burbach said an app cannot take the place of parish life or the sacraments, but can help people start learning or develop a regular habit. He described Creedo’s purpose as bringing users closer to those fuller expressions of faith.
Digital gamification reshapes Catholic catechesis and spiritual formation
Digital gamification can make Catholic learning more accessible and engaging, but it also changes the habits and expectations through which people approach faith. The Church’s question is therefore not simply whether games or apps “work,” but whether they help people encounter Christ and grow into prayer, moral life, sacramental participation, and communion with others—or whether they make faith feel like a sequence of rewards to collect. The supplied Church texts affirm digital media’s missionary potential while warning that digital culture can reshape attention, relationships, and the transmission of faith.
Gamification means applying game-like features—such as points, levels, challenges, or daily streaks—to an activity that is not itself a game. These features may encourage regular participation and give learners a visible sense of progress. That can be useful for recalling basic information, sustaining a learning routine, or helping someone take an initial step toward religious education. The Church recognizes that digital technology can spread catechetical material widely and create new possibilities for evangelization.
But participation is not the same as formation. A person may complete quizzes or maintain an app streak without growing in trust in God, understanding the faith deeply, learning to pray, or becoming more loving and responsible. The US bishops describe catechesis as embracing several connected tasks: knowledge of the faith, initiation into the Church’s liturgical and sacramental life, formation for life in Christ, learning to pray, and introduction to community life. Digital activities may serve some of these aims, but they cannot be assumed to fulfil them all.
That distinction matters because the Church understands catechesis as more than delivering information. Pope Francis says that its purpose includes helping people encounter Christ, an encounter that leads them to want to know him and follow him. A well-designed game may prompt curiosity or support learning, but it should point beyond itself toward that living relationship rather than treating religious knowledge as a self-contained achievement.
Digital platforms are now part of how many people learn, communicate, and form relationships. The Synod’s final document calls digital culture a significant missionary field and urges that Christian teaching be present online reliably and without ideological distortion. It also recognizes that digital groups can foster belonging, encounter, dialogue, and peer formation.
Gamification can be a way of meeting learners within that environment. For example, a short daily prompt could invite a person not merely to earn a reward but to read a Gospel passage, reflect on it, and carry one question into prayer or conversation. A quiz might help clarify what the Church teaches, provided that it directs learners toward sound sources and fuller explanation. Such designs could make a first encounter with Catholic teaching less intimidating and encourage a habit of continued learning.
Yet accessibility must not become a substitute for sound content or pastoral accompaniment. The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith warns that online faith can become “do-it-yourself,” shaped by personal preference rather than the Church’s teaching. It also notes that digital culture can weaken a sense of local belonging and flatten memory and history into an “eternal present.” In a gamified setting, this cautions against presenting doctrine as disconnected answers, disposable content, or a menu from which users choose only what they like.
Game mechanics typically make progress measurable: a score rises, a level is completed, or a streak continues. That can motivate practice, but spiritual growth does not map neatly onto such measurements. A score can indicate that someone answered particular questions correctly; it cannot, by itself, show whether that person is becoming more prayerful, discerning, merciful, or faithful.
Pope Leo XIV warns that digital culture can foster immediacy and hyper-stimulation, leaving people fatigued or less willing to make the effort involved in seeking truth. This is relevant to catechesis because serious learning and spiritual formation often require patience: returning to a difficult teaching, listening to others, examining one’s conscience, and remaining with Scripture or prayer even when there is no instant reward. A design that makes every activity rapid, competitive, or reward-driven could work against those habits.
The Synod also warns of digital harms including misinformation, bullying, exploitation, and addiction, and calls for education that builds the ability to navigate the web critically and safely. Those concerns do not prove that any particular faith app causes harm; they do mean that digital catechesis should be evaluated not only by whether users open it or keep a streak, but also by whether it supports freedom, sound judgment, and healthy relationships.
Pope Leo frames digital formation as a human and Christian responsibility:
“Let us invest in education, beginning with ourselves! We all need to learn how to engage with the digital world in a human way, as an integral part of our education in the faith and in a life lived according to the Gospel.”
This points toward a balanced approach. Gamified tools should be assessed by whether their incentives serve the learning and formation, rather than becoming the main purpose. A Catholic resource should be truthful and rooted in the Church’s faith; encourage reflection rather than only rapid responses; help learners connect what they study with prayer, worship, moral choices, and service; and make clear when a question requires a teacher, catechist, or pastoral conversation. These criteria follow from the Church’s account of catechesis as intellectual, spiritual, moral, liturgical, and communal formation—not simply content delivery.
Adults and educators also have a role. Leo calls for adults to accompany children and young people in using technology, helping them recognize risks and choose what fosters inner freedom. He presents this guidance as part of their educational vocation and a concrete form of charity. Digital catechesis, then, need not be an isolated encounter between a learner and a screen: families, parishes, schools, and catechists can help interpret what is learned and connect it with lived Christian practice.
The supplied Church texts offer principles for discernment, not an evaluation of a specific Catholic app or proof that gamification improves catechesis. They do not establish which particular features are effective, or whether a given app leads users toward deeper faith. Such claims would require evidence about the tool’s content, design, use, and effects. The most responsible conclusion is therefore conditional: digital gamification can support Catholic catechesis when it serves truthful teaching and fuller Christian formation, but it cannot be treated as a substitute for encounter with Christ, prayer, community, or the sacramental life of the Church.