Pope's Blessing

According to Devlin Barrett of NYpostonline.com and the Times of London, the Pope and the Vatican-run TV station Sat2000 have given their blessing to Pokémon. This comes as Pokémon: The First Movie opens this week in Italy amid widespread PokéMania.

Sat2000, a satellite TV station run by the Italian Bishop's Conference of The Vatican, said the trading card and computer games are "full of inventive imagination", that the games do not have "any harmful moral side effects", and are based upon "ties of intense friendship". The station also went on to say that Pokémon inspires
its young players to think creatively to conquer challenges without violence, and that the game tells simple stories which give children the opportunity "to enter directly into the story" through role-playing adventures.

Barrett of NYpostonline.com goes on to report that PokéMania is so widespread that Italian officials now worry that "the Mafia will strong-arm its way into the craze, flooding the streets with counterfeit cards because the real ones are now almost impossible to find in stores."

*The above quotes are from the N.Y. Times, an article reported by Devlin Barnett. All quotes are copyright of the New York Times.

I am aware that I am tripping into the line of religion and fact by publishing this page, and I apologize in advance if I have offended you in your beliefs in your faith in the pope. This is merely my opinion, one of relatively few on this site. The decision to write this page came from the following reasons below.

The following is the reason why I am taking the step into religion. Pokemon lovers have been using the cloak of the pope’s blessing to shoot their arguments. I say “cloak” because they tell me about it and then they blast at me about it. To clear things up, I did not come forthright and say that Pokemon is evil. The site was created and designed on the purposes for the indication that the trend or fad of Pokemon was a bad influence on children. And yes, I am not talking about teens that follow this trend.

By saying this I am not insinuating that the pope is bad in any form or shape. It is to insinuate that the pope may not be entirely correct on his blessing of the trend Pokemon. It’s just a warning to those lovers who exploit every loophole that is in this article, whether it goes for things that are not clarified or things that I have not even mentioned.

As an Atheist, I feel that I can judge indiscriminately on the pope. Knowing the pope’s stance on cloning in the U.S., he is adamantly opposed by the thought of creating humans and destroying them for the purposes of science. In the show Pokemon, there is no cloning, no breeding, no anything of that sort until you get to what is the show’s equivalent of the game’s Gold and Sliver. Perhaps that he blesses it because there is no stickiness on the cloning/breeding issue?

The pope also mentions that the trading card game is “full of inventive imagination.” This is wrong - its rigidity and it discreetly, in a way, trumps on imagination. Digimon works out much better - I'm seen many kids make up Digimon names. And the fact that Pokemon follow-ups - its newest breeds of 300 new ones - virtually are pre- and extended evolutions, that is not true creativity in the works.

“Ties of intense friendship” is another reason the pope blesses it. But is this really so good? The tri-team of kids are so intensely wrapped in their quest to “be the best” that one of their only common interests are just Pokemon. Friendship over one thing is not friendship. I’ve seen hotly contested battles and fights on the show and know that it’s not being friends when you only have one thing in common. You are divided easily, you can march off angrily - it happened to me in a nine-month relationship with a kid that only had one thing in common with me.

-Anonymous