{"id":5480,"date":"2007-11-14T14:48:23","date_gmt":"2007-11-14T19:48:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tancos.net\/wp2\/2007\/11\/14\/virtual-catholicism\/"},"modified":"2007-11-14T14:48:23","modified_gmt":"2007-11-14T19:48:23","slug":"virtual-catholicism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/virtual-catholicism\/","title":{"rendered":"Virtual Catholicism"},"content":{"rendered":"

basilica02.jpg<\/a><\/p>\n

Inside the Basilica Cardinale, with the light of two suns shining through the windows. Curiously, outside the front door of the church it’s raining.<\/em><\/p>\n

I spent recent lunch hours investigating how much of a Catholic presence there is in Second Life<\/a>. There’s not a lot. A search for “Catholic” places yields only ten results<\/a>, some of which I’m staying far away from. ((Here<\/a>‘s what turns up when you search for “jesuit” places (warning: offensive). (The Society of Jesus<\/a> may be well-intentioned, though.) )) A search for “Catholic” groups finds twenty-eight<\/a>, some of which are not the least bit religious. Some do appear to be sincere, though, and one or two might be worth joining if I had more time, e.g., The Catholic Tolkien<\/a>. Still, I’m more than a little leery of such organizations as Fr. Simoni’s “Second Life Catholic Church<\/a>,” whose charter advertises Mass, Confession and sloppy proofreading.<\/p>\n

During my investigations, I took numerous snapshots. Here’s a selection.<\/p>\n


\nCatholica is the most-visited Catholic location. It features five churches, a Stations of the Cross, some shrines<\/a> and a gift shop<\/a> featuring authentic Catholic kitsch:<\/p>\n

ringbling.jpg<\/center><\/p>\n

Cardinal Sin’s ((I presume the name is just a joke.)) Basilica Cardinale also has wares to sell:<\/p>\n

basilicawares_001.jpg<\/a><\/p>\n

basilicawares_002large.jpg<\/a><\/p>\n

The most impressive site, from a model-building perspective at least, is St. Benedict’s Monastery:<\/p>\n

monastery_002.jpg<\/a><\/p>\n

monastery_005.jpg<\/a><\/p>\n

chapel01.jpg<\/a><\/p>\n

cemetery.jpg<\/a><\/p>\n

The Church of the Holy Cross, a Byzantine-rite site, is under construction. Notice that it really is out in the middle of nowhere:<\/p>\n

ortho02.jpg<\/a><\/p>\n

ortho01.jpg<\/a><\/p>\n

ortho03.jpg<\/a><\/p>\n

Here’s St. Robert Cathedral:<\/p>\n

caledon02.jpg<\/a><\/p>\n

caledon01.jpg<\/a><\/p>\n

For German-speakers, here’s Kirche St. Sixtus:<\/p>\n

kirche01.jpg<\/a><\/p>\n

kirche02.jpg<\/a><\/p>\n

The Campivallensis Catholic Meditation Center isn’t really my kind of place, even if it does include a treehouse:<\/p>\n

meditation.jpg<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Inside the Basilica Cardinale, with the light of two suns shining through the windows. Curiously, outside the front door of the church it’s raining. I spent recent lunch hours investigating how much of a Catholic presence there is in Second Life. There’s not a lot. A search for “Catholic” places yields only ten results, some … Continue reading “Virtual Catholicism”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-and-anti-culture","category-weird-world-web"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4xam3-1qo","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5480\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/shuffly.net\/zoop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}