Post a Comment On: Catholic Video Gamers

"Among the wonderful technological discoveries which men of talent, especially in the present era, have made with God's help, the Church welcomes and promotes with special interest those which have a most direct relation to men's minds and which have uncovered new avenues of communicating most readily news, views and teachings of every sort. The most important of these inventions are those media which, such as the press, movies, radio, television and the like, can, of their very nature, reach and influence, not only individuals, but the very masses and the whole of human society, and thus can rightly be called the media of social communication.""The Church recognizes that these media, if properly utilized, can be of great service to mankind, since they greatly contribute to men's entertainment and instruction as well as to the spread and support of the Kingdom of God."- from the DECREE ON THE MEDIA OF SOCIAL COMMUNICATIONS, Inter MirificaSince the promulgation of Inter Mirifica in 1963, Catholics have witnessed social communication employed in ways entirely compatible with this papal decree. It was only a few decades ago that Hollywood sought to produce movies for a specifically Catholic audience; nowadays, while such explicit catering to a "Catholic" demographic is quite rare, movies produced by Catholics for a specifically Catholic audience, such as The Passion of the Christ and Therese, continue to be produced. Recent decades have brought a Catholic television network, EWTN, to a global audience. The internet contains a plethora of Catholic websites and blogs, and the written word, even when delegated to the pages of a book, continues to offer us an indispensible way to engage in the New Evangelization. In instances where media that isn't explicitly promoting the story of a Saint or a scripture study, Catholics have still utilized these communications for the promotion of the common good. The USCCB regularly publishes movie reviews, as do websites such as decentfilms.com. Catholic print publications and online venues carry book and music reviews; some, such as Lifeteen, even cover media for a specific age group.Yet there remains one communications medium that seems to have received the "cold shoulder" from Catholics: video games. It is for this reason that "Catholic Video Gamers" exists. "Gaming for the greater glory of God" is indeed possible (hat tip to the Jesuits for the blog's "motto"), and here is where the exploits of Catholic gamers will be recorded for all interested parties. Whether it be the discussion of specific games and their merits or commentary on the gaming "culture" at large, Catholic Video Gamers aims to find ways to "spread and promote the kingdom of God" with the video gaming medium.