Is it okay for priests to play jokes?
Posted: Thu Apr 06, 2006 2:16 pm
I could have stuck this in the religion thread, but now that we have this great Danger Room, I thought I'd give it its own topic since it's more than a religion question, it's a question about the power of the media and perception.
First, an introduction and a short History Lesson
I like podcasting. To me it is one of the more exciting new developments in internet technologies. It brings an immediacy and closeness that blogs lack and is one of the first good community building uses (in my opinion) of the recent increased bandwidth we now enjoy with cable internet etc.
Podcasting went from unheard of to being Webster's Dictionary's "Word of the Year" in a year. So when I started listening to them, there were only a few and now, there are many. Former Mtv VJ Adam Curry has been called the "Podfather" for his early work in promoting podcasting and anyone who's interested in podcasting knows who he is.
Another "leading character" in the world of podcasting is, of all things, a Catholic Priest from the Netherlands. It seems pretty random and it kind of is. Father Roderick Vonhögen was a dynamic young priest who liked technology so the Vatican sent him to radio communications school before assigning him to the Diocese of Utrecht in Holland. Besides serving as a parish priest for his diocese he was charged with the role of exploring the web and new media for the church.
He got his start with podcasting during a trip to Rome where he made a "sound seeing" tour of the city and in the Vatican. He also reported on the deteriorating health of the pope who was hospitalized at the time. He posted these to the internet under the title "The Catholic Insider". Over the next few months he continued to podcast his sound seeing tours of different sites around Europe, but it was the fact that he was again in Rome when the Pope died that really put The Catholic Insider on the map as a podcast worth subscribing to. It's his amazing first hand reports of the atmosphere in Rome during John Paul II's last days and hours even - as Fr. Roderick was posting them moments after he recorded them – that cemented him as an important voice in both podcasting and for Catholicism.
Okay, Enough with the History
So, fast forward a year later (because this could get dull otherwise). Fr. Roderick's weekly to bi-weekly Catholic Insider show has become a show called "The Daily Breakfast" - a variety show with about 80% secular content. The Catholic Insider website is now The Star Quest Podcast Network with several podcasts under its umbrella, all with Catholic content. Fr. Roderick has thousands of listeners and fans. In fact if you go to Podcast Alley you will see that the Daily Breakfast is the #2 top subscribed podcast and then under the "religious inspirational" genre, SQPN podcasts occupy the entire top 10. (A closer look at that genre will show you that Catholics seem to really to hear themselves talk on the internet. In the top 40 only 5 of them are not about Catholicism. This is in part due to Fr. Roderick and in part due to the late Pope JPII who challenged Catholics to "evangelize new media" right when podcasting technology became available.)
On March 30th Father Roderick posted his 99th episode of the Daily Breakfast that ended with a plea for help. His Bishop was concerned that he was spending too much time on his podcasting activities and not enough time on his work for the diocese. In addition, his Bishop wanted him to concentrate on his work in the Netherlands and speaking in Dutch rather than producing podcasts in English. So it was looking like podcast #99 might be Fr. Roderick's last. He asked for testimonials from his listeners - emails that he could take to a meeting with the Bishop that he was going to have on Saturday, April 1.
His plea was heartfelt and very believable. Hundreds of messages poured in from listeners all over the globe. Some listeners found the website for the Diocese of Utrecht and wrote directly to the Bishop and the press secretary. Various news medias were alerted by concerned and angry listeners hoping to use this as leverage to stop Father Roderick's Bishop from ending his podcasts. Various Vatican officials including Pope Benedict received numerous requests for assistance. Catholic podcasters everywhere (and there are a lot of them) produced special emergency shows asking listeners to do anything they could to help save Father Roderick's podcast.
None of his listeners looked at the date and because of the newness of podcasting, many of the Daily Breakfast's listeners had subscribed AFTER April 1st of last year when Fr. Roderick played an elaborate April Fools prank regarding product placement in his shows. (He claimed different companies had paid him to name their products in his podcast and he asked listeners to keep track of them and write in with a list to help him study the effectiveness of this advertising scheme. They did. He received about 20 or 30 lists of products from listeners along with their opinions of his new "Godcast" show.)
This year though, Fr. Roderick's prank which was meant to be funny and generate a few emails, produced almost 600 testimonials, involved the Vatican hierarchy from his Bishop to the Pope (Fr. Roderick had to quickly contact all of them and explain that his joke got out of hand). He also needed to respond to the many reporters calling his home and urgently requested his listeners cease calling or emailing anyone outside of him about this situation.
On April 1st Father Roderick could do nothing other than expose his prank and thank all the people who had written in. He was shocked by the size of the response and the incredibly personal emails he recieved from people. Because of the effort people had put in - he suggested he might make some kind of project of it. He thought that maybe taking names etc. out of the letters to make them anonymous and them posting them for all to see would be an amazing testimony of the power of podcasting.
This is where things got ugly.
The problem was, too many people looked and felt like idiots. Many people did things on Fr. Roderick's behalf that they wouldn't normally do apparently. Those who had never bothered to praise him did so, the ones that hadn't ever prayed for him took time out to remember him in their thoughts, many people commented in may different forums and not all of these were positive. A large contingent, though they admitted to listening to the Daily Breakfast strongly supported Fr. Roderick's Bishop, saying it was about time someone put an end to the spiritually unsound activities this priest who was spending too much time involved in base secular media.
With the joke exposed however, all these people felt either stupid and/or taken advantage of (because the took the time to write and/or pray) or they'd spoken out against a show that wasn't actually ending. The "wow I can't believe how seriously you fell for it" tone of Father Roderick's 100th podcast didn't help things. He was clearly grateful for the unexpected outpouring of support, but you could see he wasn't quite sure what to do with what he'd done.
Once again, letters and blog comments poured in, but instead of in support, they were angry. The level of anger people felt was quite shocking to me and it got me thinking of the power of this medium and of the additional complexity created by the fact that the shows host is a Catholic Priest.
Here is a sampling of the basic responses:
[quote]
- Feelings of total and utter betrayal. They have unsubscribed from Fr. Roderick's podcast and want nothing more to do with him. He has proven himself to be untrustworthy.
- The opinion that the Catholic church is doomed due to the actions of dishonest and sneaky priests like Father Roderick.
- Similar to the above are reports that one's non-Catholic friends who were considering converting have now committed themselves to atheism all because of the actions of Fr. Roderick on April Fools.
- Strings of expletives that are so rude that I can't imagine calling anyone these things at anyone, especially a priest.
- General anger that Fr. Roderick abused the relationship he has with his listeners, fooling them just to get them to write nice things about him.
- Laughter. That was a great prank. Father Roderick totally had me going!
- Shock leading to forgiveness. The prank was over the top, but hey forgiving one's sins is part of being Catholic and we forgive you Father.
[/quote]
Since the majority were towards the top of the scale (anger and expletives) Father Roderick released a second post episode #99 podcast that was simply an apology to all those who's feelings were hurt by his joke, explaining that that was not his intention at all.
It backfired of course.
Those who had been fooled the first time accused Father Roderick of putting those superior acting skills to work once again play with their emotions and fool them into believing he was truly sincere. Which lead to further expletives, angry letters of protest, etc.
So? What's the deal? Can priests not play pranks or risk shaking the beliefs of Catholics everywhere and causing the non-Catholic world to go Atheist? Does one guy with a podcast have that kind of power or are all these people over reacting?
Do you have a favorite blog or podcast that you like? How would you respond/feel if you heard it was going to be forcibly stopped and then found out it was a joke?
Many people drew the parallel between Father Roderick's media based April Fool's joke and the decades old scandal in the Catholic church of priests abusing their relationship with their young parishoners. Do you agree?
Or are people just overreacting?
-e
First, an introduction and a short History Lesson
I like podcasting. To me it is one of the more exciting new developments in internet technologies. It brings an immediacy and closeness that blogs lack and is one of the first good community building uses (in my opinion) of the recent increased bandwidth we now enjoy with cable internet etc.
Podcasting went from unheard of to being Webster's Dictionary's "Word of the Year" in a year. So when I started listening to them, there were only a few and now, there are many. Former Mtv VJ Adam Curry has been called the "Podfather" for his early work in promoting podcasting and anyone who's interested in podcasting knows who he is.
Another "leading character" in the world of podcasting is, of all things, a Catholic Priest from the Netherlands. It seems pretty random and it kind of is. Father Roderick Vonhögen was a dynamic young priest who liked technology so the Vatican sent him to radio communications school before assigning him to the Diocese of Utrecht in Holland. Besides serving as a parish priest for his diocese he was charged with the role of exploring the web and new media for the church.
He got his start with podcasting during a trip to Rome where he made a "sound seeing" tour of the city and in the Vatican. He also reported on the deteriorating health of the pope who was hospitalized at the time. He posted these to the internet under the title "The Catholic Insider". Over the next few months he continued to podcast his sound seeing tours of different sites around Europe, but it was the fact that he was again in Rome when the Pope died that really put The Catholic Insider on the map as a podcast worth subscribing to. It's his amazing first hand reports of the atmosphere in Rome during John Paul II's last days and hours even - as Fr. Roderick was posting them moments after he recorded them – that cemented him as an important voice in both podcasting and for Catholicism.
Okay, Enough with the History
So, fast forward a year later (because this could get dull otherwise). Fr. Roderick's weekly to bi-weekly Catholic Insider show has become a show called "The Daily Breakfast" - a variety show with about 80% secular content. The Catholic Insider website is now The Star Quest Podcast Network with several podcasts under its umbrella, all with Catholic content. Fr. Roderick has thousands of listeners and fans. In fact if you go to Podcast Alley you will see that the Daily Breakfast is the #2 top subscribed podcast and then under the "religious inspirational" genre, SQPN podcasts occupy the entire top 10. (A closer look at that genre will show you that Catholics seem to really to hear themselves talk on the internet. In the top 40 only 5 of them are not about Catholicism. This is in part due to Fr. Roderick and in part due to the late Pope JPII who challenged Catholics to "evangelize new media" right when podcasting technology became available.)
On March 30th Father Roderick posted his 99th episode of the Daily Breakfast that ended with a plea for help. His Bishop was concerned that he was spending too much time on his podcasting activities and not enough time on his work for the diocese. In addition, his Bishop wanted him to concentrate on his work in the Netherlands and speaking in Dutch rather than producing podcasts in English. So it was looking like podcast #99 might be Fr. Roderick's last. He asked for testimonials from his listeners - emails that he could take to a meeting with the Bishop that he was going to have on Saturday, April 1.
His plea was heartfelt and very believable. Hundreds of messages poured in from listeners all over the globe. Some listeners found the website for the Diocese of Utrecht and wrote directly to the Bishop and the press secretary. Various news medias were alerted by concerned and angry listeners hoping to use this as leverage to stop Father Roderick's Bishop from ending his podcasts. Various Vatican officials including Pope Benedict received numerous requests for assistance. Catholic podcasters everywhere (and there are a lot of them) produced special emergency shows asking listeners to do anything they could to help save Father Roderick's podcast.
None of his listeners looked at the date and because of the newness of podcasting, many of the Daily Breakfast's listeners had subscribed AFTER April 1st of last year when Fr. Roderick played an elaborate April Fools prank regarding product placement in his shows. (He claimed different companies had paid him to name their products in his podcast and he asked listeners to keep track of them and write in with a list to help him study the effectiveness of this advertising scheme. They did. He received about 20 or 30 lists of products from listeners along with their opinions of his new "Godcast" show.)
This year though, Fr. Roderick's prank which was meant to be funny and generate a few emails, produced almost 600 testimonials, involved the Vatican hierarchy from his Bishop to the Pope (Fr. Roderick had to quickly contact all of them and explain that his joke got out of hand). He also needed to respond to the many reporters calling his home and urgently requested his listeners cease calling or emailing anyone outside of him about this situation.
On April 1st Father Roderick could do nothing other than expose his prank and thank all the people who had written in. He was shocked by the size of the response and the incredibly personal emails he recieved from people. Because of the effort people had put in - he suggested he might make some kind of project of it. He thought that maybe taking names etc. out of the letters to make them anonymous and them posting them for all to see would be an amazing testimony of the power of podcasting.
This is where things got ugly.
The problem was, too many people looked and felt like idiots. Many people did things on Fr. Roderick's behalf that they wouldn't normally do apparently. Those who had never bothered to praise him did so, the ones that hadn't ever prayed for him took time out to remember him in their thoughts, many people commented in may different forums and not all of these were positive. A large contingent, though they admitted to listening to the Daily Breakfast strongly supported Fr. Roderick's Bishop, saying it was about time someone put an end to the spiritually unsound activities this priest who was spending too much time involved in base secular media.
With the joke exposed however, all these people felt either stupid and/or taken advantage of (because the took the time to write and/or pray) or they'd spoken out against a show that wasn't actually ending. The "wow I can't believe how seriously you fell for it" tone of Father Roderick's 100th podcast didn't help things. He was clearly grateful for the unexpected outpouring of support, but you could see he wasn't quite sure what to do with what he'd done.
Once again, letters and blog comments poured in, but instead of in support, they were angry. The level of anger people felt was quite shocking to me and it got me thinking of the power of this medium and of the additional complexity created by the fact that the shows host is a Catholic Priest.
Here is a sampling of the basic responses:
[quote]
- Feelings of total and utter betrayal. They have unsubscribed from Fr. Roderick's podcast and want nothing more to do with him. He has proven himself to be untrustworthy.
- The opinion that the Catholic church is doomed due to the actions of dishonest and sneaky priests like Father Roderick.
- Similar to the above are reports that one's non-Catholic friends who were considering converting have now committed themselves to atheism all because of the actions of Fr. Roderick on April Fools.
- Strings of expletives that are so rude that I can't imagine calling anyone these things at anyone, especially a priest.
- General anger that Fr. Roderick abused the relationship he has with his listeners, fooling them just to get them to write nice things about him.
- Laughter. That was a great prank. Father Roderick totally had me going!
- Shock leading to forgiveness. The prank was over the top, but hey forgiving one's sins is part of being Catholic and we forgive you Father.
[/quote]
Since the majority were towards the top of the scale (anger and expletives) Father Roderick released a second post episode #99 podcast that was simply an apology to all those who's feelings were hurt by his joke, explaining that that was not his intention at all.
It backfired of course.
Those who had been fooled the first time accused Father Roderick of putting those superior acting skills to work once again play with their emotions and fool them into believing he was truly sincere. Which lead to further expletives, angry letters of protest, etc.
So? What's the deal? Can priests not play pranks or risk shaking the beliefs of Catholics everywhere and causing the non-Catholic world to go Atheist? Does one guy with a podcast have that kind of power or are all these people over reacting?
Do you have a favorite blog or podcast that you like? How would you respond/feel if you heard it was going to be forcibly stopped and then found out it was a joke?
Many people drew the parallel between Father Roderick's media based April Fool's joke and the decades old scandal in the Catholic church of priests abusing their relationship with their young parishoners. Do you agree?
Or are people just overreacting?
-e