Yesterday’s naming of Chicago native Robert Prevost as Pope Leo XIV—the primary American-born chief of the Catholic church—has already led to plenty of jokes and memes about his potential interactions with varied bits of American popular culture. And that cultural publicity apparently extends to some informal video video games, making Leo XIV our first confirmed gamer pope.
Speaking to NBC5 Chicago Thursday, papal sibling John Prevost confirmed that the soon-to-be-pope performed a few video games simply earlier than flying to the papal conclave earlier this week. “First we do Wordle, as a result of it is a common factor,” Prevost mentioned. “Then we do Phrases with Associates. It is one thing to maintain his thoughts off life in the true world…”
OK, so the pope’s love of informal phrase video games would not precisely put him in the identical class of people who find themselves speedrunning Doom slaughter maps. Nevertheless it’s nonetheless putting to appreciate that the 69-year-old pontiff is among the many reported 44 percent of American Baby Boomer men who play video games regularly and the 15 percent of Americans aged 55 and over who’ve performed Wordle particularly.
A brand new era
Within the latest previous, papal curiosity in video video games has often taken the type of official statements decrying their potential for hurt. Pope Francis, as an illustration, warned in a 2016 speech that younger folks ought to keep away from spending extreme time on “a settee that guarantees us hours of consolation so we are able to escape to the world of video video games and spend all types of time in entrance of a pc display.” And in 2007, Pope Benedict XVI specifically called out video video games “which within the identify of leisure exalt violence and painting anti-social conduct or the trivialization of human sexuality.”
