New Study: Video Games Linked to Crime, Violence and Sexual Deviance. Church Leaders Offer Sigh of Relief

Dietrich Stevenson AP
Vatican City- Today marked a celebration in the Holy City that rivaled Papal inaugurations, Easter and Christmas mass. Pope Benedict, as well as other promenat Christian Leaders, anouced to their flocks that a new study in the New England Journal of Medicine that linked video games with deviant behavior such as crime, lewdness, and violence. This study came as a shock to many experts who linked such behavior to the Christian Church. Dr. Paul Liberwitz of Harvard School of psychiatry expressed his surprise to the new findings, "I am completely shocked! For 2,000 years the Church has been the 'whipping boy' when it came to passing blame on the rise of violence and inappropriate sexual behavior. I guess we were wrong; it was video games all along!"
Catholics were not the only ones celebrating as news of this victory spread through out the Christian religion. Protestant leaders such as Jerry Falwell, and Dr. James Dobson exclaimed on their national syndicated programs the "Good News" that video games, and not their oppressive views of Holy Scripture, were the reason behind the apparent increase of "sinful behavior." "In the 50's," stated Dobson, "We didn't have video games and we also didn't have sin."
As news of this study begins to infiltrated the masses, many are relieved that the Church is absolved from any cause to such behavior. Bob Merkly is one such person as he confessed in his Evangelical Bible Study that his problem with pornography and several affairs was due to his "experimenting with Pong in the 70's" and not with "[my] religious upbringing that taught me [that] women are only objects for a man's pleasure." In another related confession, convicted arsonist Doug Hybel, has sought an appeal to his conviction in burning down two abortion clinics in Illinois. He now claims that it was not God, nor his pastor that convinced him to burn down the clinics but the evil "tools of Satan" referring to his collection of video games as a child. "Mario, Luigi and that damn Mega Man made me burn those clinics," cried Hybel.
Some however are denying the claims of the new study and believe that the Church has invested billions in creating such a report to get the media off their backs. Whether a vast conspiracy or a new revelation, the Church sighed with relief today as criticisms seem to be shifted elsewhere, for now.