Meet the Gaming Heavy Metal Priest

In the Church, video games are not well thought of": Father Monnier, a heavy metal-playing priest who is out of step

"It's not up to the Church to rule on popular culture, it knows nothing about it," says Father Bertrand Monnier. 

Father Monnier, who is in charge of 28 parishes in the Meuse region of France, has just published his first book with the Catholic publisher Salvator: "The Ten Commandments of Video Games".

It is difficult to guess from the traditional celebration of his services that Father Bertrand Monnier, Parish priest of Verdun (Meuse), is a fan of metal music, video games as well as fantastic and medieval worlds. To realise this, you have to go through the door of the presbytery where the 43-year-old priest has been living since 2017. Amidst photographs of Pope Francis, the Bishop of Verdun or trinkets bearing the image of the Virgin Mary, one discovers a room entirely devoted to his passions: three super-equipped "gamer" computers sit surrounded by his heavy metal CDs, from Amon Amarth to The Offspring.

On the walls, posters of Heroes of Storm, Lord Voldemort or Middle Earth, the world imagined by J.R.R. Tolkien, father of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Father Monnier, who is responsible for 28 church towers in his native Meuse department, has just published his first book with the Catholic publishing house Salvator: "Les dix commandements des jeux vidéo" (The Ten Commandments of Video Games). The eldest of a family of seven children in which "their parents are still polite", Bertrand Monnier fell into hard rock in the 6th grade when a friend put Guns N'Roses in his ears for the first time.

"It was a bad idea."

"I already wanted to join the orders, so I hid. In my very Catholic family, it was frowned upon," he says. Video games came later, in the late 1990s. It was the games based on strategy or construction that he liked the most: "More complex, with quests, adventure or reflection", he says. He was soon identified as a specialist in this field. The mixture of genres pleases or disturbs, it doesn't matter: he organises round tables, evenings, interventions around his passions. It was at the end of one of these that the publisher Salvator asked him to write a book.

His "Ten commandments of video games" are intended to be a discussion tool between the generations and provide "reference points for parents and grandparents who are overwhelmed by this virtual world" as well as methods to fight against addiction. "This book is an update: thanks to it, they are no longer completely out of touch," stresses the priest, who is known for wearing metal band T-shirts with his Roman collar. And it works! "Even old people start playing. Not to recapture their childlike spirit, but their grandchildren," he smiles.

"Priest for the geeks"

Although he believes that "gaming is serious", Father Monnier is aware that "in the Church, video games are not necessarily well regarded: there is a whole utilitarian generation that thinks that if you are still playing after 20 years old, you are necessarily immature". For him, playing video games allows the "necessary escape from societal pressure", considering that today "being young is very difficult" because of "economic and climatic anxieties".

For some, Bertrand Monnier is an original, even a marginal. For others, such as the Bishop of Verdun, Jean-Paul Gusching, who has tried out his virtual reality device, his passions can be an asset: "Priests must be pastors. If I'm a pastor with geeks and metalheads, it suits him.

"The world we live in"

He regularly invites youtubers, gamers or hard rock fans to meet his parishioners. To get them out of their comfort zone? "If their comfort zone is the 20th century, yes," he laughs. For him, it is "more a question of contemporary culture than of faith". He believes that "it's not up to the Church to rule on popular culture, it knows nothing about it".

He thinks she "has to listen to what the video games, the tattoos, have to tell her. Because she has a lot to hear. A new book is in preparation on tattoos, even though he does not wear any. These books, like his speeches, are a way of saying: "This is the world we live in, this is the world God has sent us into".

Source

Cathcon: There is a deep spiritual malaise as the world amuses itself to death.  This contributes to the problem rather than solving it.