The YouTube Video They Should Have Shown at the Synod

My feeds are awash this morning with reports of the anti-Muslim video shown on Saturday evening at the Synod on the New Evangelization. Find the details at the Vatican’s own news site, which calls the video “fear-mongering” stating, “Scary music, stark white words on a black background and the warning that dropping fertility rates in Europe, plus high birth rates among immigrant Muslim families, means our children face a threatening world of Islamic domination in the very near future.”

(Edited: I don’t mean to make light in any way of the very serious misstatements made in this video. Fellow Catholic Patheos blogger Frank Weathers points to both Reuters and the CIA for factual refutations of the content of the video. Thanks Frank!)

Catholic News Service’s blog shares the video itself with its description of the events. We could start speculating about which Cardinal chose to show the video, and why. But instead I thought it would be more fun to share the videos they should have been watching on a Saturday night at the Synod. I pondered a few possibilites, but found a clear winner that could serve to not only show those assembled a great look at the Church in America, but also could have prompted an impromptu rave on the Synod floor!

My winner comes from the genius team at Spirit Juice Studios. In my book, the Synod should be consulting with Spirit Juice and some of our other buds in the Catholic New Media world for their tips on YouTube done right. Clearly, this video is aimed at a particular audience and may not be your cup of tea. But it shows the tremendous potential of what can be accomplished when talent and faith combine. In the mean time, they could have had two minutes and twenty three seconds of fun, and a pretty great look at what moments like NCYC mean to the youth of our Church (and subtitled in Spanish too!). Watch out for Bishop Christopher Coyne and the Synod’s own Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller making cameo appearances.

Warning: Speaker alert — if you’re watching this at your office, turn the sound way down!

Now it’s your turn! What YouTube video do YOU think they should have watched at the Synod?