I think one of the challenges that the Pope faces is that he is an intellectual who is used to talking to grown ups who think beyond the buzz-word-sound-bite level. He’s used to ACTUAL toleration and debate, rather than the political correctness that passes itself off as “toleration” in America.

Apparently Scott’s idea of tolerance is that it’s all well and good until he thinks someone is going after one of his sacred cows. Then his perceived attacker must be a “tyrant.”

So… twist the message, run a bad picture and hope no one notices that you’re too lazy to actually read & understand the argument being made… much less actually refute it.

Oh.. yeah… toss in a irrelevant reference to pedophile priests. Forget the millions of people fed each day by the Church. Forget the millions who are lying right now in Catholic hospitals for free. Forget everything! 0.01% of priests are alleged to be pedophiles, so its ok to lie about what the Pope wrote and then bash him for it.

What sense does that make??

These letters convey a “continuation of dialogue” that extends for over forty years.

It’s intended to be a talking point and even cross-links to many points that stress this pro-media point of view.

Heck, the fact that it’s in preparation for friggin “World Media Day” where the Church celebrates the potential good that all mass communication media can bring kinda should set the tone.

Games weren’t intended to be more than a passing reference here. In doing so, he gave an example that games were included in the media and should be included in the pastoral ministries to support those facing “moral challenges” in developing them. In doing so, he cited an example on what would be such a moral issue facing developers.

It wasn’t an all-encompassing statement, and the “is a perversion” MEANS subverting something from the good- implying that there is a default “good” use that’s been taken away.

That’s too bad. I have really enjoy your work, especially in DAoC. And, hey, it’s your blog. If you want to bash Catholics, that’s your business. But I would have thought you would have been intellectually honest about it. Saying that the Pope “dislikes video games” is grossly inaccurate.

Thus, either 1) he does not have the information you presume he does, 2) he does have the information but is making a sloppy statement (which you’ve intimated is impossible), or 3) he does have that information but is intentionally withholding it in order to muddy the issue for his followers. Of the three possibilities, the first seems most likely, but by your statements only the third could be true, and I find that one the most … disturbing.

I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at the Pope’s familiarity with games and the media. Ratzinger was a scholar- and not just on the arcane dialogue of missionaries with Saladin. Statements like these get more scholarly scrutiny than any white house press conference.

With that in mind, the main points of the paper that should be heartening to developers are:

1) Parents are responsible for educating kids about the media
2) Churches are responsible for helping in that education
3) Freedom should be the focus of that education
4) The church should support those that don’t “go down the low road” in the quest for profitability.
5) Exalting violence and depravity is a perversion

and really, most importantly:
6) Games are held in the same category of legitimacy as other media- television, radio, movies… heck, he even referenced literature as comparable media types. Haven’t we WANTED to be seen on that same level?

For anyone interested in seeing some more open discussion from one of the aforementioned pedo-priests, check out the documentary “Deliver Us From Evil” by Amy Berg (2006).

SPOILER WARNING: God does not actually turn out to be in favor of child sacrifice.

“exalt violence and portray anti-social behaviour or the trivialization of human sexuality”

The keywords are ‘exalt’ and ‘trivialization’ here.

The examples I used on [H] were Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto. Both are violent. One paints violence as a great cool fun thing to do in the city.

Or, as I also noted, for those of us who are ancient: Choplifter as opposed to The Bilestoad.