Panel: DIGITAL RELIGION IN AN (IN)EQUAL WORLD: OPPORTUNITIES, CHALLENGES, AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS



845_2.4 - ROLEPLAYING THE PRIEST: REPRODUCING AUTHORITY AND INEQUALITIES IN A FILIPINO CATHOLIC GROUP ON ROBLOX

AUTHORS:
Ciocca D. (University of Milan Bicocca ~ Milan ~ Italy)
Text:
Roblox Filipino Catholics (RFC) is a group of Filipino Catholic users of the Roblox platform, a Massively Multiplayer Online Game. It can arguably be defined as a virtual community counting thousands of users who come together, socialize, and engage in shared activities within the spaces of the gaming platform. What sets RFC apart is its explicitly religious orientation: as stated on its Facebook page, it is "a community of young people who aspire to live a holy life online." Posts on the same Facebook page reveal in-game events that simulate the Filipino Catholic liturgy, such as Masses and processions, celebrated by avatars looking like priests and ministrants. Roblox Filipino Catholics members adopt role-playing titles such as lay faithful, priests, bishops or cardinals, even if they have no seminary formation or background. While being a bottom-up, spontaneous, and creative laboratory for religious identities, Roblox Filipino Catholics also reproduces the inequalities that shape the experience of contemporary Catholicism. Access to higher positions like priests or above is restricted to males; members in higher positions in the virtual clergy are often also part of the administration of the group, acting as new religious gatekeepers; finally, participation in the group's activities depends on a stable Internet connection, reproducing technical and economic inequalities that are deeply rooted in the Philippine context (Pertierra, 2010). Drawing on my digital and onsite ethnography in Roblox Filipino Catholics and Manila, this paper explores how gendered, hierarchical, and technological divides intersect with digital roleplay while generating new power relations among members. I argue that an ethnographic account of these dynamics on Roblox may contribute to the broader discussion on how "networked religion" emerges as an entanglement of traditional and new authorities, as well as pre-existing and emerging inequalities (Cheong, 2009; Cempbell, 2007; 2011).