Metaverse church is a mirage at best and a mockery at worst.

I am considering doing my first real investigative report. Anyone keen to join me?  You won’t have to leave the comfort of your own home, as we will be going to check out the “Life. Church” in the Metaverse.   Since I don’t think it is church – just a video game that plays church, I don’t feel intimidated about attending and a part of me wants to see for myself why believers gather in virtual reality to worship God. 

Call me technically and or even theologically naïve but until today it just didn’t occur to me that individuals would think virtual reality church to be a positive good and want to participate in it.  It was brought to my attention by the eloquent Catholic Daily Wire podcaster Michael Knowles (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2MvsrfdQUU from about 37mins onwards). Knowles rightly warns the listener that this is a “disturbing story” because of the way it contradicts the incarnational mystery of Christ. Knowles shows a clip from a local station at the start of his story. I watched with horror as a Protestant pastor carried out a digital “baptism” that was falsely deemed valid.   Since baptism to a Protestant is symbolic, it seems digital water suits just as well as real water to symbolically wash someone clean. Well then, what about the wedding service, will you also perform that in the digital world?  Especially since one of the participants said that he believes that “the future of the church is the Metaverse,” so he must consider it a possibility.

Yet another participant was thrilled that the Scripture readings came to life because the world was rendered according to the verse of the reading and “that made scripture much more real for me”. I don’t think that man has visited a Catholic church, where renderings of Christian scripture have been adorning the churches for 2000 years.

Michael Knowles, is of course, one hundred percent correct. The main issue with this way of “doing church” is that it doesn’t reflect the incarnation of Christ. We are the body of Christ and we come together as such, being present with one another when it is possible.  We know and practice the words of the Gospel  “For where there are two or three gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:20). And whilst I am not saying that God cannot be found in the Metaverse amongst Christians gathering virtually to pray together, I am saying it is a stretch to apply this reading with equivalence to actual real-life gatherings.  However, to be completely fair to those Protestants who enjoy church in the Metaverse, many of the same features of their local church are present. They have worship, the sermon, and the socializing.  For physically disabled or otherwise housebound Christians, this is an option that provides an opportunity they wouldn’t have otherwise had to “meet” with other Christians.

For Catholics however, it isn’t just a stretch, it is an impossibility to have Mass in a Metaverse.  Just as it is impossible to fully participate in Mass online from home. However, at least with Mass online, we were still gathered as a family at home each Sunday morning with our physical bodies, praying together and completing a spiritual communion.. The good parish priests that made this option available to us in extreme conditions did their best to make us feel a part of Mass without allowing us to believe that this was equivalent to a full Eucharistic experience.  And now I must state what should be obvious to any Catholic, this is the reason that a church service in virtual reality is not possible for Catholics. The Body of Christ must be gathered to receive the Body of Christ, the incarnational Lord in the Eucharist. 

It really does highlight the theological difference of opinions about ecclesiology and  the nature of the Sacraments. When we were in lockdown and my Protestant friends were quite content with online church, I was like most other Catholics in mourning for the loss of the Sacraments. Above all, I missed receiving the Lord in the Eucharist.   Explaining that to a non-Catholic Christian was a challenge, but also an opportunity to highlight the permanently incarnational nature of the Catholic faith.

Now I am subscribed for” Life. Church” in the Metaverse https://www.life.church/metaverse/. No headset needed – 2D is also available. Perhaps this is an opportunity for Catholic evangelization that has never been tried before. It certainly won’t be replacing live Sunday Mass.