Pope-elect plays video games to 'distract himself from real-world life'
On May 8, a papal conclave elected Robert Prevost as Pope Leo XIV—making him the first American to lead the Catholic Church and likely the first pontiff to play video games.
On May 8, a papal conclave elected Robert Prevost as Pope Leo XIV—making him the first American to lead the Catholic Church and likely the first pontiff to play video games.
As reported by Ars Technica, this was revealed by Pope Leo XIV’s brother, John Prevost, who confirmed that he played several casual video games before flying to the papal conclave, which took place earlier this week.
«At first we played Wordle because it’s a regular thing. Then we played Words with Friends. It’s something that helps him get his mind off of life in the real world…», — Prevost said.
Sure, word games don’t make Robert Prevost a gamer like the demon-slaying players of Doom, but it’s still a pretty good number for the 69-year-old pontiff. That puts him among the 44% of American baby boomers who regularly play video games, and among the 15% of Americans aged 55 and older who have played Wordle.
Leo XIV’s predecessors generally condemned video games.
For example, Pope Francis warned in a 2016 speech that young people should avoid spending excessive time on «the sofa that promises us hours of comfort so that we can escape into the world of video games and spend all our time in front of a computer screen.» And in 2007, Pope Benedict XVI specifically highlighted video games «which, in the name of entertainment, glorify violence and depict antisocial behavior or trivialize human sexuality.»
However, in 2000, Pope John Paul II, on Vatican television, called the Pokemon franchise «full of inventive imagination» and praised it for «bonds of strong friendship».
The new Pope belongs to the same generation as a class of (relatively) young American politicians, who are also increasingly exposed to video games in their younger years. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, for example, enjoyed playing the Dreamcast, and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has said she played games like Super Mario 64.
Recall that the previous Pope became the first pontiff to attend the G7 summit of world leaders, where he warned about the dangers of AI. «We would condemn humanity to a future without hope if we deprived people of the ability to make decisions about themselves and their lives, condemning them to depend on the choices of machines», — Pope Francis said.
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